


Interrogatio

by justanotherStonyfan



Series: Honey Honey [23]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Forced Orgasm, Hand Jobs, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Multiple Orgasms, Nipple Clamps, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Rimming, Sex Toys, Sexual Roleplay, Shibari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 01:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18681667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: “Listen,” Steve says, “I was thinkin’, you know you got that…’I’m your prisoner’ thing?”...“Yeah?” James says again, and his voice is a little rougher this time, can you blame him?“Well, I was thinkin’ of a couple ways we could do it,” Steve says





	Interrogatio

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the third arc of Honey Honey! 
> 
> Right now, if you're reading this in the first three to four hours since I uploaded, I'm watching Avengers Endgame at my local cinema. 
> 
> **Please Do Not post any discussion of, or spoilers for, the film in my comments sections. Comments containing film discussion/spoilers will be deleted.** Just because I will have seen it by the time I read them doesn't mean my readers will have. Thank you.
> 
> For Ash.

The week starts with a major disappointment, for both of them. And James tries not to be incredibly sad, but he finds it very difficult to help it.

His mom, as usual, will be pulling all of James’ family together for Thanksgiving, which is the twenty-sixth, and it takes him a good half a day to convince her to let Steve join them.

Not because, as he suspects, his parents still don’t approve enough to invite him. In fact, he’s mid tirade when his mom says, 

_“James, Jamie, sweetie,”_ and he pauses to find that she’s saying, _“Where would he sleep? On your floor?”_

He’s about to say, ‘mom, I’m twenty-one’ and have a probably very embarrassing conversation about what he can and cannot do with his own body, but then he thinks about it.

And shit, that’s a point. He could take the couch downstairs but Steve’s taller than the couch is long and…Well, Steve’s said he’s okay on the floor?

“I could take the couch,” James says. “He could have my bed.”

Because, sadly, so sadly, there’s not enough room in James’ bed for both of them. Kind of just as well, really, because James’ restraint goes out the window where Steve’s concerned.

She has other questions too - how much does he eat? Will he be comfortable around the family members he hasn’t met yet.

And, though James eventually gets permission from his mother to invite his boyfriend to their house for thanksgiving, he finds himself crushed when he mentions it to Steve.

“Oh honey,” he says, the way he might respond to bereavement, “sweetheart, that’s so wonderful of you but I’m on duty over Thanksgiving this year.”

He had, in fact, scheduled it last Thanksgiving, when they were establishing the rota, because those with family usually took Thanksgiving off, and those without (and, occasionally, those who couldn’t avoid it) had Thanksgiving together at the tower, instead.

“Oh,” James said, and Steve reached out for him, folded James into his embrace.

“I’ll be honest, darling,” he said softly. “It’s wonderful of you to ask, and I’d love to join you and your family next year, if you’ll have me. But I’m…not sure how ready I am.”

James pulled back and looked at him to find Steve looking wistful, a little sad.

“For the noise and people?”

Steve had just smiled ruefully.

“It’s been a long time since I spent Thanksgiving in a Barnes household,” he’d answered.

And really, what on earth could James say to that? He’d reached up, stroked Steve’s hair back off his forehead.

“Well my mom said to tell you that you’re welcome any time,” he’d said, and Steve ducked his head to kiss him softly.

And so James had spent an enjoyable Thanksgiving helping his mother and Father prepare the food, and had video-called Steve in the evening after everyone went to bed. 

Because James works for Stark Industries and Stark Industries is not a shitty employer, he was off until Monday. But, because James has parents who love him and family who rarely sees him, he can’t get away until Friday night. 

He goes straight to the tower.

~

When James walks into the bedroom in Steve’s apartment, Steve’s at the desk, on his laptop, a towel on his head, and a towel folded on the seat under his bare ass. 

“Hi,” James says, and Steve looks at him, turning his head as his eyebrows go up, grinning.

“Hey!” he says. 

James has already dumped his bag and his coat and shoes in the living room, and he wasn’t expecting Steve to be naked but it’s a nice surprise for a Friday night.

He comes over, and Steve leans back in the chair - he’s got the tail end of the towel up between his legs, either for modesty or just protection against the cold, and he smiles as he cranes his neck for a kiss. 

“Good holiday?” he asks, and James beams.

“Yep,” he says. “You off now?”

“Sure am,” Steve confirms, and then he puts his arms up and rears back in his chair, feet against the back of the underneath of the desk as he stretches. 

If the fact that he’s naked weren’t enough, Steve suddenly becomes a taut arc of muscle and sinew, leaning back so far he’s basically a work of art. His thighs, the covered cradle of his hips, the concave of his stomach, the arch of his back that lifts his chest by default, his throat, his arms, the underside of his jaw - James _very_ much likes what he sees. Steve grunts as he holds the pose for a few seconds, a couple of gentle clicking noises as his bones go back to where they’re meant to be, bubbles bursting in his joints or whatever, and then he folds up into his chair again.

He raises an eyebrow when he looks at James, clearly aware of what he looks like.

“Mmh, I feel better for that,” Steve tells him, and James wets his lips.

He nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “You know Michaelangelo?”

Steve blinks at him.

“The artist? Yeah.”

James nods.

“Just checking,” he says.

Steve stares at him a moment longer, and then smiles self-consciously, looks away. 

“What do you feel like for dinner?” Steve says, and James shakes his head.

“I want sex first,” he says. “Then we’ll eat.”

Steve pushes himself away from the desk with his feet, and gets up as though he’s made of liquid gold, just flows out of the chair and onto his feet as the towel drops, and he stalks to James - because this is a man who _knows_ how to stalk - and then sinks onto his knees, wraps his arms around James’ thighs.

“I’m hungry now,” he says. 

~

After sex, and then dinner, and then sex, and then dessert, they decide to go to bed and fuck some more. They’re thinking of heading to the conversion tomorrow, neither of them wants to stop long enough to manage it tonight.

“God you’re-” James says, jolting forward on his hands and knees with every thrust, “-an animal tonight-”

Who can blame him? James has been away for pretty much the whole week.

“Yeah,” Steve says. _“Ohn, yeah!”_

~

When Steve is taking a power-nap after that, James spends a few minutes looking at him.

Steve’s had a busy week, what with the public appearances and the way none of their friends have left them alone about their anniversary weekend. Plus, if James is being honest, Steve has been doing most of the heavy lifting tonight (is that what James’ brain is calling it?). James loves being fucked so hard his ears ring but he’s not surprised Steve’s going to be out of it for fifteen minutes or so, especially give this is like the third time tonight, and James has mostly just been letting Steve do all the work.

His favorite is when Steve passes out, on top of him or next to him or underneath him in the between rounds, for a quick thirty seconds - although he hasn’t done it since he’s recovered from his bullet wounds - because it’s both adorable and a hell of an ego boost.

But James also wants to bring something up with Steve, and he wants to be sure about it before he does. He crosses to Steve’s desk and flips open the laptop - it’s the laptop James always uses, and Steve never conducts classified work on it. He’d go to his office for that.

So James pulls up the browser and has a look at a couple of things while Steve’s taking his nap.

~

Steve wakes another ten minutes later with a yawn.

“I’m grabbin’ a Gatorade,” he says. “You want?”

James closes the page, closes the laptop.

“Why not?” he says. “I’ll come with you.”

They fuck over the kitchen island, too.

***

It’s not until the following morning that Steve looks at James with an odd expression on his face. 

He brings James a tray, on which is coffee, fruit, and what looks like custard or something, and sets it down. The custard is topped with bacon, and cheese, and chives.

“Ohmagud,” James says, regaining consciousness as he pushes himself upright, breathing in hard through his nose while he scrubs his hand over his eyes. “Thismellsmazin.”

Steve laughs, leans forward and brushes a kiss over James’ forehead. James is already gearing up eat, because this looks incredible, smells incredible, he wants all of it in his face, right now.

“Enjoy it, sweetheart,” Steve says, and he leans back against the headboard with his own little pot as James grabs his first mouthful. 

“What’s in this?” James says, fanning his mouth because it’s _hot_ , holy shit.

“Egg, cream, bacon, cheese, chives, salt and pepper, et cetera. It okay?”

James nods because his mouth is full with the next spoonful.

And then he says,

 _“D'lishes, fanks!”_ because his manners are simultaneously great and terrible.

“They’re called shirred eggs,” Steve says. “Eggs cooked with cream over the top. And,” he nods, “obviously the bacon and cheese.”

“Guogh my God, it’s so good,” James says. 

“I’m glad,” Steve says. “I was worried they’d be too like the ol’ safeword but I’m glad you like it.”

James continues to eat like he’s been starving, and Steve just smiles as he does. He is, as James will discover, waiting for James to finish eating. 

~

After _that_ , when they’re finished, and they’re both propped, sweaty and breathless, up against the headboard, Steve is smiling, his eyes half closed.

James is glad he doesn’t have to walk anywhere today.

“Still okay?” Steve says.

James is busy mouthing at Steve’s shoulder, still kind of moaning softly. The threadcount of Steve’s sheets is very high but his skin still kind of feels too… _there_.

“I feel amazing,” he says. “I feel like I’m floatin’.”

“Well, you just tell me if you need a break,” Steve says. “I don’t wanna work you too hard, weekend’s for restin’.”

“Want you to fuck me on the couch,” James says, and Steve chuckles, arranges himself so that he can get his arm around James.

James starts kissing his chest instead, fuck yeah, pecs.

“Listen,” Steve says, “I was thinkin’, you know you got that…’I’m your prisoner’ thing?” 

“Yeah?” James says. “Which one, the one with the two way mirror or the one with the straps?”

“The one with the straps,” Steve says, and James could get hard again, he could.

The one with the two way mirror is the one where James ‘gets mistaken for a [cyber terrorist or something, he’s never really decided but whatever] but ends up being a good-guy secret agent that Captain America can’t resist.’ 

The chair is ‘someone has his way with a captive,’ though, and James has so many things he wants from that scenario. Patient/doctor, test subject/evil scientist, helpless civilian/sex-pollen (James loves him some Ethan/Krisis sex pollen stuff - the sex! The angst!). The possibilities are many and varied.

“Yeah?” James says again, and his voice is a little rougher this time, can you blame him?

“Well, I was thinkin’ of a couple ways we could do it,” Steve says, and James tries to eat his lower lip in a desperate attempt to stay quiet and find out what Steve’s going to say. “Best way I can think of’d be the office chair from the spare room. You know, the big tall one?”

James knows it, yeah - it’s very tall and very broad in the back, which is great ‘cause it doesn’t have arms, and, _and_ , it reclines to almost horizontal, cradles you like a giant hand, it’s really nice to lie back in to look at the planetarium projections. 

It would also lay said ‘prisoner’ out completely.

“That sounds amazing,” James says. “Oh my God, that’s so smart, I was thinkin’ like the bed or the breakfast island, you know?”

“Mm,” Steve says and, carefully, he extricates himself from the embrace they’re sharing, and crosses to the desk.

He picks up the laptop and opens it, passes it to James.

“I wanted to make sure I had the right recipe for shirred eggs. You wanna type it in for me? S-H-I…”

The change of subject is a little abrupt but Steve’s never steered him wrong before, so James opens the browser, types…

And stares.

There, in the address bar, is the autocomplete for the previously run searches. 

_Shi **bari beginner**_  
_Easy ties for **Shi** bari novices_  
_Shi **bari harness**_  
_Shi **bari limbs**_  
_Shi **bari simple**_  
_Shi **bari ties**_

And then, right at the bottom is,

_Shi **rred eggs**_

James’ mouth is a little dry.

“Ah,” he says.

Steve’s smiling when he risks a glance though, it can’t be all bad?

James tries for a smile that’s also an apology, Steve huffs a laugh, and then he says ‘heh-he-e-eh’ in a high pitched kind of schadenfreude and lies down on the bed next to James while James fights his intense blush.

“It’s okay, honey,” Steve says, and he curls his hand over James’ thigh, “don’t worry about it, it’s a good idea. I just thought it was funny. And I figured it’s a good way to, y’know.” He waves his hand out in front of him. “Segue.”

“You want to segue into Japanese rope bondage with eggs?”

“I want to segue into Japanese rope bondage,” Steve answers. “And hey, speaking of Japanese rope bondage-” James laughs “-I know some ties. Easy ties. Simple ties, ones that’ll work.”

James looks down at him, at the openness on his face, and tries not to be unbearably turned on by the words alone.

“You do?” he says, and Steve wets his lower lip and then scrapes his teeth over it.

“I do,” he says. “They’re ones I like.”

James has to take a few seconds to process that, because ‘I know some ties’ is a whole world away from ‘they’re ones I like,’ and ones-he-likes could mean two things, both of which are hugely appealing to James.

“You gonna tie me up?” James says, aware that Steve’s answer will tell him which.

Steve looks up at him, clearly knows too, and sticks his tongue up against his molars for a minute, considering.

“No. I thought we could indulge that interrogation fantasy of yours,” he says, nonchalantly, in that way that ruins James so completely. “What do you say?”

James’ heartbeat thunders in his ears. There’s ‘being questioned’ and ‘being interrogated,’ but he’s only ever talked about _one_ of them being _interrogated_ , because it’s a formal term, meant for people who use formal terms. Like Avengers.

“What?” he says, _is he serious?_ “Are you serious?”

“If you’d like to,” Steve nods.

“Yeah,” James says, would he like Steve at his mercy? “Yeah, as in, yes please, sign me up, what’s first?”

Steve laughs softly, wets his lower lip with his tongue.

“Technique,” he says, bobbing his eyebrows. 

James stares down at him. Steve’s nestled in amongst the bedclothes, the pillows underneath his head and the sheets cradling him. His skin is smooth and warm and he looks up at James without any consternation or hesitation. 

James looks at him a moment longer and then looks around on the bed, finds somewhere to put the laptop. Then he crunches over and kisses Steve.

“I love you,” he says, breathless already, excited because he can’t help it.

Steve smiles up at him.

“I love you too, honey,” he says. “First, we need a word.”

James frowns.

“Like a safeword?”

Steve shakes his head.

“Nah, we got one ‘a those,” he says, “we need an ‘information’ word. ‘Cause, y’know. You can’t torture a guy for information if he don’t got any.”

James blinks.

“What?” he says and then he realizes. “Oh. So like…”

Wow, okay. So there’ll be a safeword, if Steve’s had enough, and a codeword, to stay in the scene.

“If I say something like…” Steve clearly casts about, “Project X?”

James blinks, holds very still so he doesn’t immediately pop the boner he can feel threatening.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Well then, if I’m having a bad time, I yell ‘Eggs Benedict’ and if I’m having a good time I don’t say anything. And if I’m at your discretion, I say ‘Project X.’ That can be the information you’re trying to get me to divulge.”

“So ‘Eggs Benedict’ would be stop but ‘Project X’ would be…I win?”

Steve nods, grinning.

“Yep,” he says. “In our little torture scenario, please, Sir, I can’t take any more.”

James is hard, he’s so hard.

“But I could make you?”

Steve pushes up onto his elbows, cranes his neck, nuzzles at James’ nose with his.

“As much as you want.”

“Yeah,” James says. “Yeah, this sounds amazing, can we- When do you-”

“I could go clean up,” Steve says. “I could go right now if you-”

“Yeah,” James nods. “Yeah, I want-” He _wants_ , boy, does he ever. “I want to do it, we can do it here?”

“Sure,” Steve nods. “I’ll go clean up, there’s ropes in the closet. You’re looking for the red ones, there should be four bundles, and they’ll be with safety cutters.”

James feels shivery on the inside, nervous in his belly.

Steve sits up as James scoots to the edge of the bed, hooks two fingers around his wrist. It’s not enough to pull him back, but it does make James turn his head and look back at Steve.

“This is a fake torture scenario,” Steve says, “so grab the lube, condoms, gloves, and any toys you might wanna use, whether you think I like ‘em or not. Take ‘em in and put ‘em on the breakfast island. And dress in somethin’ sexy. Okay?”

“Okay,” he breathes.

Steve lets go, gets up, and walks to the bathroom.

James starts gathering everything together. What the hell does he have that Steve counts as sexy?

~

Steve comes into the living area fifteen minutes later with a towel on his head, and the huge, tall-backed office chair in his other hand. Just carrying it. Because he’s a supersoldier.

“Hi,” he says, and he’s wearing a white tank, which looks amazing, and gray sweats, which he’s already at least half-hard inside. 

“I am so turned on,” James says, and Steve nods as he throws the towel aside.

“Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”

And then he looks at James.

James has picked a white shirt and black pants - the pants are ones he can move around in - and he put his hair up in a bun. Steve looks like he’d like to eat him alive.

“I forget how good you are with instructions,” he says with a short nod, and James is hugely flattered to realize Steve would probably find him sexy in anything.

Steve puts the chair in the huge floorspace between the corridor to the rest of the apartment and the back of the couch in the living area. It’s nice and big, and it means James will have a lot of room to work.

“And if you’re feeling particularly vindictive, you can wheel me up to the window.”

James stares at him.

“While you’re naked?” he says, kind of startled. 

“Yeah,” Steve says. “There’s privacy settings to make the windows mirrored on the outside. Like, totally mirrored, not just skyscraper windows - they’re already one way now but if I engage the stuff, you could shine a spotlight on me at midnight and nobody’d see me even if they had their face smashed up against the glass out there. I just don’t like it.”

“You…” James says. _“Don’t_ like it?”

“Yeah. Jarvis, engage all environmental privacy protocols,-”

_“Engaged, Sir.”_

“-honey, come over here and put your dick on the glass, huh?”

James feels his eyebrows shoot up.

“Uh,” he says, ‘cause actually, like he…uh. Okay, they’re like a mile up and it’s the middle of the day but…

Steve looks back at him, smiles. 

“Exactly,” he says. 

“But then why would I do it to you?” James says, and Steve shrugs.

“It’s nice sometimes not to get everything you want,” he says. “Like when you beg me to stop when you know I’ll keep going.” James will actually have an orgasm on the spot if Steve doesn’t quit it. “Besides, this is a torture scenario. You’re trying to convince me to give you information. I’m betting you’re not gonna want to slap me around-”

_“No!”_

“-so,” Steve says, and he holds up a hand, like, _okay, chill,_ “we’ll talk about what parameters a torture scenario could entail, but I wanna do that last. I want it fresh in your mind.”

James nods probably too much and too fast, but he wants Steve to know it’s an enthusiastic yes. 

“Okay,” he says, and Steve looks at him then, figuring out his next move.

Then he comes all the way over and cradles James’ face in his hands, kisses him softly.

Steve holds his hand out for the bundles of red rope, and James goes to hand him them. Steve holds up one finger instead, so James frowns, and then just hands him one of the bundles. 

"Thanks," he says, and then folds himself into a small shape on the floor, one foot flat on the ground, knee up, the other leg stretched out in front of him - James is always surprised he manages to do it, Steve looks like the kind of guy you ought to be able to see a mile away and yet, somehow, he's also capable of being the stealthiest man James has ever met, capable of making himself so inconspicuous you’d be hard-pressed to find him even if you were looking for him.

He supposes it comes from Steve's younger days, before the serum - from being able to draw on that unobtrusiveness and ability to...be ignored? That's kinda sad. Obviously, he's also been trained as a spy, so it's not _that_ bleak necessarily, but there he is, a little ball of Steve on the floor.

_Is Steveball like Calvinball? Rules can’t be used twice except the rule that rules can’t be used twice._

"I'm gonna teach you to do this," Steveball says, "for two reasons. The first is that, if you know how to do it, you also know how to undo it. That way, if I get into trouble or there's pressure in places there shouldn't be, you know where to undo - or where to cut - to get me out fast. It's never happened, I've never seen it happen, but it's a precaution."

"That's fine," James says, he’s fine, he’s calm, shut up. "Better safe than sorry, right?"

"Right," Steve says, pointing at him. "The second is that it's way hotter if you tie me up yourself. The whole power thing."

James nods because yeah, totally, like, _totally._

"Come here and sit down, I'll show you how to do it. It'll help to have the floor here to start, you can wedge your foot down that way."

James scrapes his teeth over his lip and nods, he can do this. He, a twenty-one year-old engineer, can learn to tie up a forty-two year-old supersoldier for sexual pleasure, James Barnes can figure out how to pretend he’s an evil mastermind who hates Steve Rogers in order for them both to get off. The former holder of his high school’s coveted title of Most Likely to be Carded at Thirty is _completely_ able to truss up the former Captain America to make him come so hard his eyes cross. _Sure!_

"Yeah," he says, and sits down on the floor next to Steve, one foot down, knee up, the other leg stretched out. "Okay."

Steve smiles, unwinds his bundle, and waits for James to do the same. James does it with fingers that may or may not be shaking and a heart that’s trying very hard to leave his chest.

"Find the middle," Steve says, and proceeds to do so on his own length of rope, unraveling it to find the ends and then holding those ends together, passing his hand back along the length of the rope until he reaches the loop in the middle. "And then hold onto the loop."

James does - unravels his bundle of rope - it's long, and kind of unwieldy, at least to his inexperience - and then holds the ends together so he can pass it through his other hand and find the middle. It’s soft, and a nice carmine red. James wonders if Steve will let him get blue ones.

"Okay?" he says, showing Steve the loop.

"Good," Steve beams. "That loop's called the 'bight'."

James nods.

"Okay, so now," Steve says, "I'm gonna do my left leg, you don't have to do you left but you can if you want to. Your pick. What you need to do is pass the bight around your ankle, and then, through the loop, grab the tails of the rope. Pull like an inch or two through, don't pull the whole thing."

James watches him - watches his clever fingers pull a new loop through the first loop - and then waits. 

"Good," Steve says again. "We're gonna make a chain like that, that'll stop the rope slipping. So pass your tails around like this and then pull another loop through this one you've just made..." he does it "...like that. Okay?"

James nods, glances at Steve's ropes for confirmation, and follows suit. As soon as he’s got rope against his skin, he’s ridiculously turned on, and he does his best to follow the instructions he was given while his mind makes pictures of Steve naked and tied down and begging.

"Great," Steve tells him, seemingly unaware. "Now go like this...and then pull the whole length through."

James feels his eyebrows go up. That's...way easier than he was expecting - he was betting on complicated knotwork and layered harnesses but this is just...a couple of loops held tight by the end of a rope.

"Like this?" he says, and Steve beams. 

"Exactly," he says. "Because, if you pull on the tails now, those knots don't go nowhere. Your cuff can't get tight."

James looks at the clean, sculpted arch of Steve's foot, and the red colored loops around it. He watches Steve pull it. It won't tighten - just like it won't on James' own when he pulls the tails of his own rope - but it's small enough that neither of them would be able to slip their feet out. He'll use this for Steve's wrists, maybe. And once he's done this to both of Steve's ankles as well, Steve will be in the ropes until James lets him out.

Steve will be in the ropes until James lets him out.

Steve is busy showing him that no amount of pulling on the ends of the rope will make the loops around his ankle tighter, which is great. Steve can struggle - James' stomach drops when his brain thinks the word _struggle_ \- as much as he wants, and it won't cut off the circulation to his feet. Or his hands. When James ties him up.

James likes shibari and has a collection of things he’s seen and liked and saved or bookmarked - but for every ten things he's seen that he liked, there's been a horror story to teach him what not to do. Pressure points, for example - stories about why you don't put knots on someone's spine if they'll be lying on their back. Or, just as Steve says, why you make sure any cinches can't slip or tighten.

"You got it, babe?" Steve says quietly, and James looks at him. 

Then looks down, pulls on his rope.

"Yeah," James says.

"Okay," Steve says, "next bit's way easier."

And, for a second, James waits for Steve to correct himself - he must have meant harder, right? But no, actually. 

Steve makes sure the knots he's made are at his heel, the tails on the inside of his thigh, and uses the floor and his body to pull himself forward without moving his foot, hugging his leg close with one arm around his knee to tuck the heel of his foot up against the underneath of his thigh. James wonders if it might be easier to do this kneeling up - that way Steve's weight would help keep his leg folded - but Steve has known what he’s talking about up until now, James has no reason to think that’ll change. Once Steve's satisfied that his leg is as folded as he can make it, he grasps the tail ends of the rope and holds that instead, effectively keeping his own ankle on a leash.

"Then," he says, "once my leg's folded tight as you can get it, you wrap the rope around in a spiral 'til you get to my knee. Okay?"

And, as James watches, Steve does it - wraps the rope in a spiral, from the soft crease where his thigh meets his torso, up and around - perhaps four passes around his folded leg - until he's up at his knee. Then he keeps his grip tight on the rope and looks at James.

"Now it's pretty much secure," he says. "We just gotta tie it off but, long as I keep my grip tight, my leg's stuck where it is now."

The fabric of Steve's sweats is stretched tight and folded, twisted oddly by the bright lines that coil around the twin columns of his upper and lower legs, and the change in tension in the fabric shows Steve's dick where it's half-up, the fullness of his balls beneath, the fabric caught between his cheeks when he leans back to let James see.

James tears his eyes away because he needs to learn this, and does the next step on himself, winds the tails up the crease where his thigh meets his torso (and tries very hard to concentrate on the rope and not his erection) and then winds a spiral around his upper and lower legs where they're pressed together. His isn't as tight as Steve's, but it doesn't matter. He's learning, not aiming for perfection.

"That's great," Steve says softly. "And you can tighten it like this, neaten it up a little" and Steve proceeds to tug at regular intervals along his rope, cinching it just a little tighter each time. "Then when you get to the top," and he brings the tail end of the rope around the front his knee, holds it down so it's crossed over the last pass of the spiral, "we tie off. And it's _way_ easy, you ready?"

James nods.

"Looks like a ladder," he says, _stairway to heaven_ James thinks.

Steve smiles.

"This rope," he lifts it just to be clear, "the end tails that I'm holding, they cross down over the top 'rung of the ladder,' yeah?"

James does it.

"Then back up under the rung," Steve says, and James does that too, "and then that's that part done."

James looks at it. 

"That's - you don't make a knot?"

"Nope," Steve says. "You just do the same thing on every rung coming down towards your groin and it basically anchors itself. There are more complicated versions, but this isn't one of them."

James looks at what Steve's doing - he makes the little over/up-under on each progressive rung of the rope, nestling each one in the little valley between thigh and calf so that the knots don't press in anywhere important, and then he drapes the end over his crotch and just waits for James to catch up once he's looped around the last rung.

James thinks about the rope and anchors the tails on every rung, just like Steve's shown him, and not about Steve's crotch. Not about Steve’s dick. 

"To tie it off," Steve says when James looks at him next, "you pass it back _under_ the rope that attaches your foot to your thigh..." he passes the tails between his foot and thigh, under the rope and to the outside of his leg rather than the inside "...and then I'm gonna tie it off with a modified slip hitch."

James watches him, leans to one side so he can see, and it's only then the he becomes aware of how restricted his leg is by the knots he's tied, how little movement there is in it. One leg is enough to stop him completely - James wouldn't be able to move away like this. He might be able to drag himself or crawl, but he wouldn't get far. And, even though he didn't tighten his spiral, there's no movement in his legs. No give, no shift. He's stuck.

To have _both_ legs tied...

He feels his face flush, feels his skin get a little tighter, feels his heart quicken just slightly.

"See what I mean about this?" he says, and James nods, leans back and ties his own knot, angles his body to show Steve. "Yeah. And the good thing about this is..." he reaches out and tugs the trailing end of the rope that makes up James' knot "...it come open if you pull on this one."

It does immediately, drops away and falls to the carpet. None of the rest of the tie is loose but, from there, it would just be a few quick tugs and then the whole thing could be slipped off James' leg aside from the cuff. And, even with the cuff still tied, there's no tightness there. It'd be perhaps five quick, easy hand movements to get the whole thing off enough that he could extend his leg.

"So, like this," Steve says, and reties James' knot. "Now, take yours off fast as you can. Then take mine off fast as you can. Yeah?"

James nods, and sets to work. 

He's free in less than half a minute, gets Steve free in about the same time. And then he sits back and looks at Steve.

"Wow," he says. 

It really is that easy. Steve smiles. 

"That simple, kid," he says softly, as though he’s read James’ mind, and James nods, sits forward.

Steve's still half hard, his ankle still wrapped around by that red rope. James looks at him, looks him up and down, stares at his dick because he can. 

"Okay," he says, trying not to just wet his lips and go to town. "So what now?"

Steve leans back on his hands, stretches both legs out in front of him. They're about to be curled up very tightly, so it make sense that he's going to want to stretch them out while he still can.

"So what now is," Steve says, "we establish parameters. We make sure we're both on the same page. We decide what we're doing and how far we're going, and we talk about things that we haven't needed to talk about before. Okay?"

James nods.

"Okay," he says.

"Good," Steve tells him. "No cutting, no scat, no watersports, no beating, no ice. Those are my hard limits. I don't mind pain but not too much - check in if you're not sure. I have soft limits too but it's mainly to do with toys I don't like - you can use a crop or a switch or a flogger or a paddle, as long as you don't go too hard. You can use clamps, but not the clover clamps. You can use a sound, but I, uh I don't wanna come with it in. I don't like the idea of. Blocking. The exit. And then the rest is pretty much up to you."

James stares at him, mouth open, for a long few seconds. 

The rest is. 

There's a lot. Like, if James is thinking about all the things Steve has and all the things he hasn't vetoed, there's a lot. And, obviously, James would say something if he wanted to try…like…shoving Steve out of the chair or something. He'd never do that, but if he _wanted_ to, he'd mention it first.

"How'd you feel about a blindfold?" James says, and Steve's eyebrow goes up.

"I can wear on for a while," he says. "Might need you to take it off me."

"Sure," James says. "Should we have a safeword for that?"

"No," Steve says. "I'll say 'Take off the mask James' and you can take it off. Y'know. ‘Cause I won’t use your name otherwise. Blindfolds, I'm blind, you don't want me to see, whatever, that's okay. But 'Take off the mask James' and you can take it off. Okay? I'll say it twice if you miss it first time and then safeword out if you miss it twice."

James nods.

"Fair," he says, that’s if James chooses to use one. "Wax?"

"Sure," Steve says. "Although you'll be lucky, I don't have any soy candles."

James' heart flutters a little - not just a guy who'll let him try kink but a guy who knows how to do it right. He can’t help picturing that, too, all that beautiful pale skin spattered with hot soy wax as he fights to keep his pain hidden, maybe James could get it on his nipples. He bets Steve would make some lovely sounds then.

"If I want to slap you around a little-"

"Remember how I spanked you?" Steve says, and James' whole body goes even hotter - boy does he ever, in full color high definition surround-sound. "Upward strokes, open hand, to make sure the energy came with my hand instead of going into your skin?"

James nods.

"Yeah," he says, his voice rough.

"That's for rounded areas. Like if you wanna slap my ass or my thighs or my pecs-” his _pecs_ , okay "-and if you go for my face then it's fingers, not palm. Go open hand, and more of a hard tap. Don't crack me around the face for real none, okay? That'd be a no."

James nods.

"Yeah," he says again. "I-I don't really...uh, like that kind of thing but-"

"That's fine," Steve says. "It's up to you. If you're aiming for genitals, be gentle - I promise you, no matter how lightly you hit me, you'll make your point, although my dick can take more'n my balls can. And I do like a little sting sometimes, it can be good. I'll stop you if I gotta stop you."

"That's," James says. "I can. Okay. Yeah. O-Okay. How about-" okay this is a big one, he knows, this is one he's kept mostly to himself, and his stomach rolls as he asks. "Can I shave you?"

Steve freezes, stares him, eyes wide.

"Uh, it's okay," James says, shaking his head. "I can understand if you-"

"Honey?" Steve says, and James stops, waits. "I'd let you but I already did it. Next time I'll leave it and you can do it. Okay?"

James is breathless with it, desperate for it.

"Can I kiss you?" James says.

And Steve says,

"Yes," and then.

James surges forward, rope around his ankle, and kisses Steve, leans into him.

"Can I touch it?" James says against his mouth. "Can I jerk you through your pants a little?"

Steve nods minutely, their faces very close.

"Sure," he says, so James does, drags his palm down Steve's stomach and over the bulge in his sweats, fondles his balls for a few seconds before he grips Steve's dick through the gray cloth. 

Then he wraps his fingers kind of loosely around Steve's dick and strokes, Steve's skin hot through the fabric. Steve doesn't change his expression for the most part. His eyes close and he breathes a little more deliberately, but he doesn't move much.

"Uh," he says, barely a sound at all, and then James lets go, Steve opens his eyes. "Any questions?"

"What's the idea?" James says. "I want information and I'll do anything to get it?"

Anything, anything.

"Yeah," Steve says. "Have fun with it, you know? It's just a scene, I won't take nothin' to heart."

James nods, leans forward for another kiss. 

"Can I try it on you now first?” he says when they part. “Before I try it on you proper?"

"Sure," Steve says, and then he unties the cuff he's made around his ankle, and offers the bight to James.

James sets to work - ties the chain of loops, pushes Steve's foot back until his heel's against his thigh, pulls the rope inward and up and winds it in a spiral around his leg. Then he pauses.

"Go 'head," Steve says. "Tighten it up."

And so James does. He tugs along the rope, pulling the slack out of it. He can see Steve concentrating on what he’s doing instead of how it feels, and then James brings the ends over, down, starts weaving them through the rungs.

When he shows Steve the modified half-hitch, Steve beams.

“There you go,” he says, and immediately starts to undo what James has done. “Any questions?”

James nods.

“Yeah,” he says. “You’re trained for this, right?”

“What, to withstand torture?” Steve says. “Yeah.”

“Mm,” James says. “So the chances of actually getting you to break are none to none.”

Steve huffs a laugh as he stands, unfolds himself and rises up to his usual great height.

“I,” he says, but he thinks about it. “We can still try?”

So that’s a yes. 

“Do we need ‘Project X’ then?” he says, and he’s not sure what the weird feeling is in his chest but he’s a little nervous that it might be disappointment.

“Hm,” Steve says. “We wouldn’t.” And then there’s silence for a long few moments. “How about you try. Huh? Try and break me. If it works, it works. If it don’t, and you want me to break anyway, say…” His gaze slides sideways to reach James, he looks James up and down. “Tell me you took…you. Hostage. Tell me you’ve got ‘my young man’ in another cell or something. And then I’ll protest a bit but I’ll say it soon after that. Okay?”

James looks at him, tries not to be overwhelmed by how adorable that is (in a weird torture scenario kind of way) and nods, picturing the various things he could do to Steve, the ways Steve might beg him prettily to stop.

“Okay,” he says to check because, oh wow, they’re really doing this. “I tell you we’ve got me tied up somewhere and you say ‘Project X’ and then you’re at my mercy. Within reason.”

“That’s the stuff,” Steve says. “But listen, if we’re gonna do this, I have a request. And. You’re not gonna like the first part.”

James frowns. What? What could he possibly not like about this? Oh, but actually…

“What?” he says. “What is it, are you gonna have like flashbacks or something?”

Because he doesn’t want to do this if it’s going to upset Steve, it’s supposed to be fun, not-

“It’s highly unlikely,” Steve says, “although you have a point. If I start on something, ask Jarvis for help, he’ll tell you what to do. But no, actually, I meant, uh…” he looks to one side again, brushes imaginary lint of his pant leg. “I’m. It’s, James, it’s…One of the big things about being tortured is you can’t give ‘em anything.”

James feels the hair rise on the back of his neck.

“You’re speaking from experience.”

Steve tilts his head a little in that ‘eh, kinda?’ kind of way. 

“I want this, honey, I really, really want it, but …” he clears his throat, squares his shoulders. “I wanna make noise. I’m gonna be loud, I’m gonna yell and shout and swear and you don’t have to listen to a word. Don’t take anything I say as ‘stop’ unless I safeword out, ‘cause I’m gonna scream the fuckin’ house down if I feel like it.”

James frowns at him. He squared his shoulders to ask for something this simple? He thought James would be annoyed that he wants to enjoy himself?

“Hundred percent” James says says. “Whatever you want. And that’s kinda what I want, I think it’s hot when you make noise.”

Steve nods.

“Okay, good,” he says. “ ‘Cause you definitely can’t if it’s actually a bad guy.” When he turns again, he smiling ruefully. “It really sucks, ‘cause it’d sure help to tell ‘em where to shove it, you know? Or just really get into the vitriol but-” he shrugs “-you can’t. You gotta keep quiet, every little bit you give ‘em’s a win for them.”

James stares at him. Steve clearly doesn’t immediately realize why, so then explains _more_ , oh God. 

“Like if you’ve ever stubbed your toe at night, versus daytime. Daytime you yell ‘fuck’ an’ hop about an’ you’re done, but you do it at night and you gotta sit on the floor for half an hour so you don’t wake the neighbours and it don’t get better ‘til dawn, you know?” He laughs. “So. I wanna make noise. I get to make noise, so I wanna. Okay?”

James nods a little numbly.

“You promise you’ll tell me to stop?” he hears himself say, and Steve looks at him, reaches out to him.

“Aw, honey, I’m sorry. Baby, c’mere,” and he folds James up against his solid, warm chest, wraps James in his big naked arms. “All I’m sayin’ is, I wanna give you everything.”

James hears the other thing he’s not saying - he kind of needs this. And, because James has all the tact of a boardwalk caricaturist, he blurts, 

“You need it,” and Steve doesn’t change his stance, doesn’t go stiff like a realization, doesn’t freeze or pull away. He just rubs James’ back with one giant hand.

“In a couple different ways, yeah,” he says, presumably because it’s not a realization for him. “You still okay to go ahead today or you want some more time to think about it?”

And so it’s James who pulls back and looks at him, searches Steve’s face and finds his expression open and easy. He looks Steve up and down - at the tent he’s pitched in his sweats, at the stretch of thin fabric over his pecs. His nipples are hard already, too - whether from cold or arousal, it doesn’t matter, they’re right there. 

James is going to take him apart if that’s what Steve wants - he trusts that Steve will tell him if anything’s less than satisfactory.

“You trust me?” James says and Steve nods.

“I trust you,” he says. “We don’t have to do it this way, if you don’t want. I can tie-”

“No, I,” James says, and then he nods. “I want to. Is that weird?”

“No weirder than me enjoyin’ it, kid, life’s too short to question fantasies. Y’ain’t ever gonna pick up a guy on the street and take him down a warehouse so what’s it matter if you and I pretend, ‘uh?”

James shakes his head, kind of in awe. At the very least, he’s shivery with gratitude towards the universe.

"You're already a Michaelangelo," James says, breathless with want - because Steve is, smooth skin and hard muscle, sulpted arcs and sharp lines all over, a work of art - but Steve's breast is broad, his shoulders wide, and his stomach is ridged and valleyed, his throat works when he swallows, and sweat glitters on his skin and, when James does this to him, wraps his thick thighs and strong arms in binding tails, the ropes will cut in, create valleys of their own, leave impressions for Steve to bear, and between the ropes will lie blood and body in gentle rolling hills of naked flesh too real to be a Michaelangelo. "I'm going to make you look like a Bernini," he says, and the promise of it is enough, James can see. 

He doesn't need to explain it to Steve. 

"Alright,” Steve says, shaking them out of it. “How do you wanna do this?" 

"Uh?" he answers, and Steve grins.

"How about I get on the chair and then you don't gotta lift me onto it once you've tied my legs?"

James chuckles.

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea, whaddya weigh like, two hundred pounds?"

"Two-forty, or thereabouts," Steve says. 

James looks at him as Steve strips the tank off over his head. Yeah, James can see how all that muscle would do that. 

Steve drops his sweats while James is thinking, and then James' mouth goes dry. 

"You're so hot," he says, and Steve laughs.

Then he takes off his tags. 

For a moment, James' stomach lurches - no, that isn't what he wants Steve to do! - but then Steve puts his hand through the loop of chain, and then loops it around his wrist again, and again, until he's wearing them as a multi-layered bracelet instead, holding the two tags and the ring in the palm of his hand.

"Are you sure?" James says, and Steve looks at his closed fist.

"You gonna try take 'em off me?"

"No," James says. "Never."

"Then I'm sure," Steve says. “They’re better round my wrist, outta the way. And listen, you check in with me as much as you want, okay?" he says, crossing to the chair to sit down. He turns it so that it faces James, and then sits down, (Buck naked? Stark naked? Ugh, isn't there a way to say naked without invoking Steve's friends?) _butt_ naked in his fancy office chair. 

He sprawls, too, legs open, torso slouched, dick hard, chest a little flushed, and he looks like he's had quite a good time already - his lips are wet and his eyes are half closed, and he settles his hands on his thighs while James looks his fill.

"Yeah," James says. "I will."

"I mean it," Steve says. "I won't mean a thing I say unless I'm using the words, but I know you worry. So anytime you ain't sure, just ask. Yeah? Even if you're sure but you just wanna check."

James nods.

"Can I," he says. "Would…it be okay if I didn't call you your name?"

Steve cocks his head.

"Yeah," he says. "This part of that roleplay thing?"

James shrugs.

"A bit," he says. "But if we're…like if I call you Captain America or Commander or something. Right? And then if you call me….I don't care, Doctor Evil or something." Steve chuckles. "Then if you say 'stop it James' or something, like, if you use my name…"

"Then you'll know I mean it," Steve fills in. "And vice versa - sure thing. Now come tie me up."

James nods, hands a little shaky now, nervous despite how much they've planned, despite how much he wants this, and he wants this more than anything. When he crosses to Steve with the bundles, and sets one fluttering-fingered hand on Steve's knee, Steve takes James' hand in his own.

"It's okay, sweetheart," he says, his voice a low murmur, his gaze fixed on James'. "You take your time. We got all the way until you leave for work on Monday, so ain't no rush about it. Yeah?"

James nods, leans down for a brief kiss.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah, I know. 'M just nervous, you know? I ain't never done this before. Not like this."

Steve nods.

"Mmhm," he says. "Been a long while for me, too, don't fret. We'll get there," he speaks so softly, so quietly, James leans toward him as he does, arrested by his tone. By the time Steve reaches up and tucks a strand of James' unruly hair behind his ear where it's escaped the bun, it might as well be a lullaby. "Got all the time in the world."

James kisses him again, a little longer this time.

Then he stands up and looks down and Steve, lithe the way only a supersoldier really can be, and without taking his eyes off James, lifts his left leg up until his foot is on the chair. He's already obscene, already spread this way, and James can smell him - heat and soap and clean sweat, with the remnants of his anti-perspirant. The scent of the cotton of the rope, and the chair, too - slightly musty fabric, and the faint smell of plastic - and the salt earth of Steve’s arousal.

James ties his knots and stares at Steve's ankle because if he looks at Steve's dick, which isn't as hard as it was but is still showing clear interest, he's going to put it in his mouth, and he's been given this gift - he wants to treat it accordingly. By like, not sucking Steve off before they even start the scene. 

He uses his weight to push Steve's lower leg against his upper leg, to fold him up completely and press his heel against his thigh, and he winds the spiral around Steve's leg to keep it that way. He tightens the ropes, ties his anchors, brings the rope under, and then he threads it back going up the rungs, too, so that the rope spirals up to Steve's knee, ties all the way down the inside of his leg to his ankle, and then all the way up the outside to his knee again. Steve doesn't question it - either because he hasn't worked out that there’s one more thing James wants to do, or because he's figured it out and doesn't care. And Steve, whose breathing is steady and whose gaze probably hasn't wavered at all given that he's staring at James with dark eyes now, lifts his other leg as James looks at him.

James is very suddenly aware of just how vulnerable Steve's going to be. 

One leg up and tied was enough to thrill James, was enough to make Steve look good. But like this, Steve won't be able to hide a thing from him. He won't have his hands to cover himself, won't be able to twist away or close his legs - everything he has will be laid out before James and James… James feels a little uneasy at that. At how much potential power he's going to have. But what if he passes out? What if something happens to James while Steve's tied up and helpless?

"You can break out of these, right?" James says.

"I'd rather not," Steve says. "But yeah, I can. Might take me a minute or two but I can split 'em. It's okay. Or I’ll break the chair."

James nods.

"Okay," he says, and he sets about tying Steve's other leg.

It doesn't take him long, and Steve stays silent and watches him throughout, intensely enough that the hair stands up on the back of James’ neck. James doesn't look at him once he's threaded the other leg's rope all the way back up to the outside of his knee. Instead, he grabs the other bundles and comes back, stands by the chair.

"Hands," he says, and Steve holds them out, fingers curled in loose fists, the heels of his hands pressed together. 

James looks at them, does the same thing with his own hands to decide something, and then shakes his head.

"No," he says. "Apart."

Steve breathes a deep breath in, long and slow, and then makes an inch of air between his wrists.

James ties his hands individually, like he's tied his ankles, and then walks around back of the chair, lifting the tails over the back so Steve has to raise his arms over his head. 

The back of the chair has a plastic 'spine,' and so James uses the modified half-hitch to tie the ropes there. And then he kneels down behind the chair, and depressed the level that will let him recline the chair. He does it slowly, so as not to startle Steve, but he also doesn't tell Steve he's going to do it. Then, when he's pulled the back of the chair as far down as it will go, when Steve's not quite-horizontal but close enough, James turns the chair so that it's sideways on. 

Steve looks at him, where he's kneeling on the floor, but doesn't speak, and James reaches up and takes in hand the tail of the rope hanging from Steve's leg. Gravity is doing all the work for him - because Steve's legs are folded and tied, and because he lies on his back, his legs have simply fallen open. So James secures the rope without pulling it tight, in another modified hitch - this time around the column of the gas cylinder beneath the seat. When he's done, he pushes the chair around again the other way, back the way it came so he's never in front of Steve, and does the same on the other side.

So gravity opens Steve's legs, and the ropes that tie his knees to the gas cylinder will stop him closing them.

Then James turns the chair so he's looking at the back of it. 

"Tell," he says, but his throat is dry. "Uh, tell me the words."

"Proper names are for real instruction, i.e.,'take off the mask James.' Charlie for go. Project X for break. Eggs Benedict for stop."

James nods to himself, shuts his eyes and breathes for a second.

"Okay," he says to himself, and then he says it again to Steve. "Okay."

And then he gets onto his feet and stands up, and spins the chair around, stops it by sticking out his leg and using his foot against the front of the chair.

Steve is-

Oh wow. 

Okay, Steve's - 

Nothing in James’ life has prepared him for this.

Steve is _staring_ at him, eyes half closed, mouth closed, jaw tight. His biceps are huge either side of his head, and his chest is both broad and long, his stomach tight, made concave by the tilt of his body, the thick columns of his spread thighs even paler against red rope and black fabric. He's cradled by the chair, as James knew he would be, and the tilt of his hips leaves him open to anything James cares to do to him, his legs spread enough to show James his hole as well as the gorgeous length of his dick and the smooth skin of his balls. James sees the gentle swell of his perineum behind them, and shakes his head minutely, palms sweating, mouth dry.

He looks at Steve's face, mouth agape, blood buzzing in his ears.

"Guess you think you have me where you want me," Steve says, and his voice is soft, but James can hear the biting edge of feigned sarcasm.

"Really?" James retorts, without really meaning to, and the corner of Steve's mouth ticks up.

"I'm just not sure what you think this'll get you," Steve answers. 

The head of his cock is wet. It looks _delicious_.

"Uh, I…want names," James says, because it's hard to get into character when he's faced with this. 

All of Steve, naked and spread out and all for him.

"You can go to hell," Steve answers. 

James tries to think, he really does, but it's increasingly difficult with the amount of blood that’s draining from his cranium as they speak. 

"I think," he says, and then he wets his lips. Come on, he can do backtalk. Right? He can totally backtalk Steve when Steve's using his Commander Rogers voice, no problem. "You know you have no way out of this. You're-" breathe. "You're mine until I'm done with you. And then I'll have no use for you."

"Think I give a damn what you want?"

"I think your dick's hard," James says. 

"Anybody can get a dick hard," Steve answers. "You're the only person I've ever met needs somebody else to do it for you."

James' mouth drops open at the implication. It's not true, obviously, but that's what Steve's saying, he's making it part of the story. He can do better at being a bad guy than this.

"I only concern myself with the entertaining-" uhhhh "-stuff."

Steve presses his lips together and James gives him a look, plants one hand on his hip as he puts his foot down on the floor.

"Gimme a break," James says, out of character, "one of us has training, and about twenty years of sass, on me," and Steve grins. 

"Sorry," he says. "It's cute. I'll be serious, I promise."

He wiggles a little - presumably to better situate himself on the chair - and his cock sways, taps the curve of his lower belly and leaves a smear. Then he clears his throat.

"You only concern yourself with the entertaining stuff," he prompts. "You consider this entertaining?"

James leans down, takes Steve's cock in his hand and squeezes without stroking.

"I think it's going to be," he says. "I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this, regardless of how you feel about it. Four security cameras, four microphones, and a livestream straight to the internet, I think a lot of other people are going to have fun with this too. Unless you'd like your dignity back, of course?"

"Shame's for them's done somethin' wrong," Steve answers, although James can _see_ that the idea of a livestream is part of the fantasy Steve hadn't considered, something he’d loathe in a real situation. "Only person doin' something wrong here's you."

"Oh I haven't even started," James tells him - an easy response, and he trails his fingers down over Steve's balls before he removes his hand.

Then he stands up and walks behind the chair to where the boxes are. Steve keeps their toys in boxes in the closet, and James has brought the box, because he's got no idea what he will and won't want to use. 

The first thing he gets is a pair of the nitrile gloves - it's creepy as fuck to put them on, he knows, and they're blue, so they look really medical. He grabs the tingle lube - because if he's going to do this he might as well do this - and tucks it under his arm, and then he starts putting the gloves on, so that he can be snapping them into place as he reappears in Steve's sightline.

Credit to Steve - he doesn't look for James. He doesn't crane his neck or turn his head, he just stays where he is - tied down and exposed as though he hadn't a care in the world - and looks at James with supreme disinterest when he comes back, as though he's not sitting there with his legs tied open and his most vulnerable spots literally on display.

"I thought I'd start by making it easy," James says, snapping the gloves, and he does his best to 'ignore' Steve, pretending he's as disinterested as he claimed while his breath hitches in his throat from the excitement. "You can scream if you want."

"I'm shaking," Steve says.

"Not yet," James answers, and Steve huffs a laugh.

James makes a show of getting a lot of the tingle lube on his right index finger before he pops the snap-cap closed as loudly as possible and plonks the bottle on the breakfast island, which is the closest surface. 

"This might sting a little," he says, because it won't - it'll tingle. but 'This might tingle a little' isn't very Dr Evil-y, or whichever bad-guy he's trying to be.

"I'm sure I'll manage," Steve answers and, wow, if this is how Steve back-talks actual bad guys, he's kind of amazed Commander Natural Selection has managed to be Naturally Selected this long.

James goes over to him, plants one hand on the back of the chair just next to Steve's arm, and leans right down, gets his face very near to Steve's but not close enough to kiss. And then, because he paid attention when he leaned down and has good spatial awareness, he's able to watch Steve's face when he presses his very slick fingertip to Steve's hole and slathers the lube all over it. 

Steve is _very good_ at this. James is looking for a twitch, a shift, anything. But there just _isn't_ one. There's no tug of facial muscle, no shift in the way he breathes. James can feel the small furl of flesh and the heat of Steve's body against his finger, but Steve shows him nothing.

"Very good, Commander," he says, and then he lowers his voice. "Still though like weren't you gonna make a bunch of noise?"

"I will when I," Steve says, and then he narrows his eyes, sucks his teeth as if to say 'seriously?' and, instead, says, "you little shit."

James snickers, he can't help it, his breath enough to shift the hair on Steve's forehead.

"I can't decide," James says, back in character, "if I want to make this easy for you for a while or make it difficult straight away. You are," he says, and he punctuates it with a very gentle brush of the backs of his fingers against Steve's balls, "very exposed."

Steve wets his lips and unclenches his jaw.

"It's kinda sad you, what, need suggestions?" Steve says.

James resolves to try and think of him as "the Commander" because otherwise he's just going to picture him as Steve, and it'll make staying in character difficult. 

"I'm not sure you understand your predicament, Commander," he says, and Steve - Commander Steve - takes a breath, sighs, as though he's bored by the whole affair.

"I'm pretty sure I got it," he says, staring at the ceiling. "You want somethin'." He looks at James. "And you can take a hike."

James…isn't frustrated. He loves Steve very much, and Steve's playing a game. But it's also pissing James off just a little. Like, in character, but still. If he were a bad guy, he’d want to prove it.

What can James do though? Hm. 

He thinks about it for a second, and runs a risk. Not really a risk. But sort of. He's asked permission, but he's not sure Steve really understood. Then he feels weird about that.

"I'm'a do a thing that _looks like_ a thing you don't like, but isn't."

Steve nods minutely. 

"Charlie," he says. 

He knows Steve keeps the clover clamps in the bottom of the box, because he doesn't like them. James has been told not to use them. He hasn't been told not to _threaten_ Steve with them though, and James did say he might threaten Steve. Also James has seen like a…strop maybe? Maybe that's the wrong word - a strap? A spanker? It's not enough to be a riding crop but it's about that width. It's just a long piece of leather, really, might have been a belt once. But yeah, it's for something like that because otherwise it wouldn't be in the box.

James stands up, clamps in hand.

"Let's see if I can persuade you otherwise," he says and, when he comes back, Steve looks at what's in his hands and…pauses. 

"Those are," he says, and James nods.

"Yep," he says quietly, under his breath, outside the character. "Want me to tell you?"

There's a very long few moments where Steve doesn't move, just stares at the clover clamps. He doesn't breathe, either - he goes so still James is surprised he can manage it.

"No," he says, and turns his head back. "You were persuading me otherwise."

James leans down and runs the tip of the clover clamps over Steve's chest, lets them rest there while he frames Steve's chest with his hands. 

"I see you know what these are," James says and Commander Steve locks his jaw, says nothing. "They're sweet, look, they look like honey bees, don't they?"

That much is true, James thinks they look like honey bees. The clamp at the top for the head and the hollows in the complicated butterfly mechanism for the wings. He scrambles to think of a 'sting' joke and then decides he'll just say something smart later.

James rubs his thumbs over Steve's nipples, both at the same time, until they harden - which they do easily, all James has to do is think about a breeze and Steve’s ready to cut glass - and then he lets go of both and lifts a clover clamp. He squeezes the spring-loaded edges to make it open, and holds it near - but not over - Steve's nipple. If he slips, he doesn't want to accidentally do what he's promised not to. This means a couple of things, however. The first is that Steve is not showing him anything new - his jaw is clenched, his expression displeased. He's breathing a little faster and staring at the tips of the open clover clamp.

"Don't crush your tags," James says softly, and he hears the soft clink of metal that must mean James had a point so they're no longer held in his palm. 

But Steve’s attention is undivided. Which means that, with his other hand, James can pinch open the little simple clamp - the metal one with the rubber tips that works like a clothespin and has a little metal screw to adjust the bite. He's screwed the screw in a little, so there's a little bit of give. They won't fall off, but they won't be tight either - because James doesn't care that it's been a while: He's seen his boyfriend regrow a nipple, and would rather start slow than be the cause of him having to regrow another one.

"They have a sting too," James says and, at the last second, he swaps right hand for left hand and clamps Steve's nipple with the clothespin-clamp instead of the clover clamp.

So firstly, nailed it, because he actually managed to keep his voice steady to say it but, secondly, also nailed it because Steve's mouth opens on gasp that might've turned into _wait!_ if he'd actually said it, but James has the clothespin-clamp in place by then and Steve all at once realizes, registers the pain, and registers it’s not as much pain, so that his shoulders kind of flinch inwards as he says,

“Ha-! Oh, ow.” James puts the other one on while he’s busy being relieved, drops the clover clamp on the floor. “Ow!”

James smirks as best he can and stands up, shows Steve that he's holding the strap.

This time he doesn't give any warning at all. He knows exactly where Steve is, where his body starts and ends, and he knows that he's four inches clear of Steve when he swings the strap down so hard it whooshes, and clips the edge of the seat with it with a snap, between Steve's legs but well away from any part of him.

It has the desired effect, though - Steve gives a short cry, his whole body flinching inward in shock as his stomach crunches up, and the chair creaks as his arms and legs come inward and are stopped short by the rope while he tries to shield himself from a false blow. For a few seconds, the memory of the cry is loud in the silence between them, and then Steve uncurls again - not that the ropes let him curl in much to begin with - his head going back again slowly until it rests against the chair. His jaw is clenched and he breathes out hard through his nose. He looks furious.

James knows there's one of two reasons he looks furious, but he also knows Steve understands the concept of safewords, and they're never going to get anywhere if James checks everything with him. He hasn't been in a situation like this before, where _his_ decisions are law - he's fantasized, but never actually had it. And so this whole thing is new. Steve trusts him, and James has listened to what Steve wants. As far as James knows, he hasn't violated that. And, as far as James knows, Steve will tell him if he ever does. 

"Sorry," Steve says, and James just touches a hand to Steve’s knee between the ropes. 

Oh, of course. The _third_ reason he looks furious - he’s mad at himself.

"No?" James says, and Steve blows a long breath out and then raises an eyebrow, looks a James without moving his head.

Then his head moves minutely as he nods.

"Charlie," he rasps, and James wets his lips. 

"Fear's an incredible thing, Commander," James says. "I've seen it bring giants to their knees."

"When was this, kindergarten or elementary?"

James pauses, smiles a little, walks around Steve, slapping the end of the strap against his palm so that it makes a noise. Stings a bit too but like, who cares?

"Every man has a breaking point," James says.

"This in your wide range of experience."

"In history," James answers, "every man has a breaking point." He runs one hand up Steve's torso, from his navel to his collarbone. "It's just harder to find in some than in others."

He's made a mistake because he's closer to Steve's right than his left, which means he's closer to the newer nipple. He worries for a second or two about it, but then decides he'll start gentle, and so moves his hand enough to catch the clamp. Steve's nipples are small and pink, over hard pectoral muscles, so the clamps stand almost upright. It turns out that just knocking one makes Steve wince.

"Haa," Steve says, very quietly, and then hisses through his teeth, sucks his lower lip into his mouth, presses his head back into the chair.

James is going to have to step it up - it's nice to tie Steve up but he's pretty sure Steve'll get bored if he leaves it too long, sure the thrill of being bound will give way to the impatience of wanting pleasure. Especially from Steve, James can be real about it.

"But we're so crude, aren't we?" James says, and he passes around back of Steve but keeps his hand on Steve's chest - has to stretch a bit - before he comes around the other side. "We're simple. As you say, anybody can get a dick hard."

He drags his hand back down, so he can lift Steve's dick by the head - tucks his fingers under and lifts it clear of Steve's body as though inspecting it. He really wants to jerk Steve off. Instead, he massages the head with fingers still wet from tingle lube, and Sees Steve's mouth open on his periphery.

"That doesn't mean I can't employ a little nuance." He lets go. "Wouldn't you say?" 

Steve opens his mouth to retort, so James swings the strap down hard enough to make a noise where it lands - on the inside of Steve's thigh this time. He jerks in the chair as it connects.

"Ow," he says, sounding semi-annoyed, and so James does it again, Steve jerks again. "Ow?"

Yeah, there's no way James is going to be able to think of Steve as Commander Rogers. And it's as he realizes that that he makes another decision. 'Project X' is a breakword. (He's coining a new phrase, sue him.) It's also a cop-out. And Steve Rogers has never broken or copped-out in his life. 

It would make no sense to ask him to do so in the middle of a simulated scene designed to satisfy him in ways actual physical endangerment can't. So James isn't going to ask him to use it. James isn't going to give the convoluted signals - if Steve doesn't break, James won't ask him to pretend he has. 

And Steve won't break, simple as that.

When James stands in front of him again, because Steve's facing the window, James is blocking the light. He's casting a big, dark shadow over Steve and Steve has to look up at him. It's funny - James never thought he'd be able to loom over Steve Rogers. Steve looks more angry than he did before, and James grips the strap a little further down so it doesn't have quite so much swing. Steve's toes curl and there's nothing he can do to stop James seeing when his asshole clenches up - that'll be the tingle lube. He's smooth from his face to his thighs as far as his lack of body hair is concerned, save for his underarms. The swathe of bare, creamy skin between his legs is as enticing as it is attractive. His balls aren't as soft as they were, and his dick is still just as hard, and So James reaches out with one blue-gloved hand and strokes Steve's cock - makes a nice, reasonably tight fist, and starts to move. He plants the other hand against Steve's thigh, leans, because Steve's legs are spread already but, this way, it'll feel more like it's James keeping them that way.

Steve's been quiet so far, but he closes his eyes and opens his mouth and moans softly, the tension in his body changes. It's pretty obvious, actually, once James is looking for it. He's more open this way, softer - pleasure means his folded legs flex open wider as he tries to push his hips forward into James' hand. His back arches off the chair a little, and it softens the deep lines of his abdominals, stretches his pecs so they're not so full, and his elbows fall open outward, too, not quite so closed inward over his face.

His face, which is a picture. 

Long lashes down, gorgeous mouth open, a gentle flush over his high cheekbones, Steve has had precisely two applications of tingle lube, and four strokes on his dick so far, and he looks like he's in ecstasy already. 

"Ohn," he says, quiet and restrained, with rising inflection like a question.

It's sweet. 

Sweet isn’t what James is aiming for. 

With his free hand, he flattens his fingers and - just like Steve did to him the afternoon of his EWS refresher - he taps Steve's balls with the flat of his fingers, short, sharp little slaps.

"Uh, hah, _oh! Ow!"_ Steve first gasps and then says, increasingly loudly.

Steve’s legs flinch inward, the cradle of his hips rocks, twists, and he screws up his face. He’s definitely trying to close his legs this time, definitely trying to pull his arms down, and James pauses to flick the other clamp.

Steve’s torso twists as he hisses - if his arms were free he’d be shielding himself, curling forward to hide but, with his arms up, he’s just pushing his chest closer to James. James flicks it again, a third time, and then grabs it, twists - Steve looks genuinely distressed as he groans through his teeth.

“What’s the matter, Commander?” James says, and he can _feel_ Steve’s cock move in his hand. “I thought you had a little more resilience.”

“Go to hell,” Steve spits, and then mutters, “ow, ow, ow.” 

“Unkind,” James says, and lets go of the clamp. “But look at this!”

He presses against Steve’s hole again with one finger of the other hand, agitating the tingle lube, and Steve clenches up, his body shifting - he looks like he’s trying to pull himself up the chair, like he’s trying to get away.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” he says, his voice a low growl, and James- “don’t you fucking _dare_!”

It’s really difficult. James will tell him later, this is the hardest part. He summons all his courage and, instead of asking if Steve’s all right, he presses just a little more with his fingertip. Steve opens up for him - Steve does it on purpose, sinks down as James pushes in, and moans quietly, his legs move outward again, he’s trying to get more. James is so relieved to have read it right that he nearly stops everything just to take a breath.

“There you are,” James tells him, as condescending as he can manage. “It’s much better when you cooperate, no?”

He curls his finger a little, rubs from the inside with it and then presses and rubs on the outside with his thumb, crushing Steve’s prostate between his internal/external pinch, James’ other thumb rubbing at the underside of Steve’s cock where he holds it steady in his other hand. Steve just pushes back and makes a couple of soft little sounds, legs twitching a little, his body clenching around James’ fingers.

Steve hasn’t answered, and James isn’t sure if he’s heard or not. So he says,

“Now that I’m doing something for you, how about you do something for me?”

And Steve looks at him then, lifts a head and looks down at where both hands are busy.

He doesn’t say anything then either, and James keeps going for a few seconds, but slows, unsure. Steve drops his head back and sighs heavily. His breathing’s a little faster but even, his head turned away. His eyes are closed, too so at least James can tell this must feel pretty nice.

Nice enough that he doesn’t want to stay in character.

“I ain’t got a choice about it,” he says, “what’s cooperating about being tied down?”

“Hmm,” James says, and he thinks he gets why it took Steve so long, so he speaks slowly to give Steve more time bing touched this way. “I know you, Commander. You have ways of making everything difficult. But I could make things so much easier.”

Steve doesn’t answer for a long few seconds, and then he groans in frustration and takes a breath - presumably to gear up to dropping himself in it for the sake of the game. 

“Are you still here?” Steve says, and James lets go of Steve’s cock, withdraws his finger and then swipes the terrycloth over Steve’s hole and stands with a very heavy sigh. 

“My, my, you are ungrateful,” James says, and then he walks back around the chair, back to the box. Ordinary lube, the aneros, new gloves, the cock ring - the ring is one of the adjustable ones, a thin tube of silicone or something, with a bead to behave as a toggle - and, hey look at that, how useful. It’s what James assumes is a glans ring - adjustable like the other - and he grabs a little bullet vibe too. Perfect.

He changes gloves and then doesn’t show Steve everything when he gets back - just the lube and the cock ring to start with. Steve makes a small sad little noise when James shows him, pouting, but he doesn’t object, and so James gets a handful of lube and slicks it all over Steve, from his hole, over his perineum, over his balls and all the way up to the head of his cock, and then he admires his handiwork. 

That’s not something for the character, he just loves how Steve’s clean-shaved skin looks when it’s literally glistening with lube.

James shakes his head, tuts.

“What a mess,” he says. 

“Whose fault is that?” Steve says, one raised eyebrow making his point, but he’s breathing hard and sweating, and his balls are drawn up and tight already, biceps tense in a way that suggests he’s holding himself very still on purpose.

Which means James has a very nice view indeed, of everything.

James can’t think of a smart retort so he just scoffs and gets onto his knees. 

“The thing about interrogation,” he says, planting his hands on the insides of Steve’s thighs, “is that precision is key. If I ask the right questions, or you give me the right answers -”

And then he leans forward and shoves his tongue into Steve’s ass like a point, flexes it to widen it out as it pushes into the ring of muscle.

Steve says,

“Ahhn!” loudly enough to make the hair stand up on the back of James’ neck, and his thighs clank to a stop either side of his head. “Ohn, ohn, oh James, _fucksorry,_ notJames, ahh-”

James smiles and shoves his face forward a little more, shakes his head and pushes deeper, and Steve groans low and loud and - apparently - tilts his hips upward, towards James’ face, as best he can. His bound legs shift - James can feel the muscle moving under his hands - and he moans softly while James eats him out a while, his attempts at anchoring himself to get closer mainly foiled by the position he’s in.

“Names,” James pauses to say, and Steve says,

“No.”

So James lets go of his legs. He doesn’t let up with his tongue but does start fishing around with his hands - he’s trying to find the lube and the aneros without stopping - and it takes him a while to do it.

“Na-ames,” he sing-songs the next time, once Steve starts making little, _uh, uh,_ noises in time with the way James pushes his tongue in. 

“No-o,” he groans, less of a word than a noise.

There it is - the lube’s a pump bottle so it only makes a mild squelch when James gets a good pump his hand. He slicks up the toy and then holds it aside so it doesn’t like…hit the floor and catch fibers and smear lube or whatever and, with his other hand, his finds Steve’s dick - which is hard somewhere around the vicinity of James’ temple from where he kneels now.

He pauses to suck against the ever-smoother skin over Steve’s balls, tongue at the sensitive flesh for a moment or two.

“I want names, Commander,” he sings softly, kisses over the silicon tube of the ring, down over the swell of Steve’s perineum until he can shove his tongue back inside Steve’s hole instead, and Steve makes soft, unsteady little sounds, his breathing so fast it doesn’t sound like he can be doing it involuntarily, and he says,

“Oh, oh, _no,_ no,” presumably because he knows what comes next.

“Hmmmm,” James says, before he withdraws completely.

Steve sags in his bonds with another sad little noise, and James picks up the aneros while Steve’s head is way back. Steve’s feet are curled in arches where they’re bound to his thighs, his toes white at the knuckles. His toes point directly at his asshole.

“Relax,” James says, and doesn’t actually give Steve a chance to do it before he’s pushing the tip of the aneros against his hole.

Steve goes still while James works, makes a little punched-out kind of sound as the toy first doesn’t move and then slips in all at once - it’s a reasonable size, James is well aware it’s quite a sensation. But the thing is that Steve can’t quite see from where his head is, and so he doesn’t know what he’s in for.

“You’re not very cooperative,” James says, and then he closes his finger in a ring around the head of Steve’s cock and squeezes rhythmically, fast as he can.

The change is instantaneous - Steve’s been relatively passive until now, relatively quiet, but he twists, pulls at the ropes, makes the same movements over and over when he finds that he’s foiled by his bonds. His hips twist, he tries to pull them back to get them out of James’ grip and then, when that fails miserably, he tries to thrust upward to get James’ fingers down further. That also doesn’t work - James just follows his desperate, jerky movements, and watches the way his stomach muscles move as he gasps in short little half-breaths, moaning as the clamps sway, too.

James stops squeezing and Steve says,

“Ah, ah,” like he’s just climbed a very long flight of stairs too quickly, so James squeezes twice in quick succession just to watch every tendon go tight, “nguh!” and lets go.

He grabs for the glans ring next, and the bullet vibe, because if he’s gonna fuck Steve up, he’s gonna do it right. He tightens the ring around the head of Steve’s dick this time, with the little bullet vibe tucked between it and his frenulum. The vibe isn’t very secure but that doesn’t matter - James will put it back if he needs to. 

“What the hell is that?” Steve says, breathless, and James was going to give him a whole spiel and threaten him some but it’s more fun to push the button on the bullet vibe instead.

The little bullet hums to life with a sound that makes James’ body react all by itself these days, blood rushing downward in a weird Pavlovian response (electric toothbrushes are forever ruined for James now) and Steve does a whole host of things as once.

The ropes go tight, to start with, his body hunching inward where it can - toes and feet curling, legs coming in with a thunk as they’re stopped by the ropes, stomach crunching, arms almost obscuring his whole face. And, James not only sees the way Steve clenches tight around the subsequent leap his cock gives, but he can also see the full-body shudder Steve’s body gives when the shape of the aneros presses against him from the inside. 

He doesn’t say anything for a long few seconds, so that they’re both dead silent aside from the hum of the vibrator, and then Steve says, 

_“Ughh,”_ with a voice so strained that it sounds like it hurt for him to make a sound at all.

James smiles, wets his lips and debates his next move, but then Steve gives a shuddering gasp that half sounds like he might be about to cry as his chest expands. So James turns on the aneros.

He’s-

Okay, wow-

So, Steve comes instantly, okay, and _wow_ thank Tony Stark for soundproofing, because that was _loud_ , loud enough to make James jump, but James watches Steve pull at his ropes and twist on the chair, watches the muscles in his thighs twitch, watches the mesmerizing pulse of his perineum and the way his hole clutches at the toy, watches his cock jerk upward and fall, over, and over, and watches him come thick and hot up his abdomen. James wants to be inside him, wants Steve inside of him, even though he knows either of those would ruin the scenario.

James can only see the underside of Steve’s jaw, and only a little of it at that because he’s pulled his whole body inward, his biceps obscuring most of his head (which is no surprise because, individually, his biceps are basically the size of James’ head by themselves). The keening cries Steve’s giving are kind of muffled by them, too, and James waits for the orgasm to slow down ex…cept it doesn’t? 

Oh wow, it doesn’t, okay, so-

Steve says, _“Uh! Uh!”_ at the top of his lungs, so loud his voice cracks over the second one, and James watches him struggle a little more and then reaches up and plants a hand on the inside of Steve’s thigh to hold him as still as he can (which is hilariously ineffective) and tries to hold the button down on the aneros. 

Which.

He can’t, his fingers slip.

Right, he’s gonna stop panicking, that’s fine, he can do this - Steve’s having fun, that’s what those noises mean. So James…okay, James gets his lube-y fingers around the end of the toy and tries to extricate it. His fingers slip the first time, though not before he’s managed to get the toy part of the way, and Steve sounds like James has grievously wounded him, but he manages the second time.

Steve’s still coming, which James can see because his hole is pink and wet and still clenching around nothing, his cock is still jerking upward and falling back to his stomach.

 _“Fuck,”_ he groans, and it sounds like a sob though it isn’t one just yet.

James snags the bullet vibe, and it comes free of the glans ring easily because Steve’s still covered in lube.

Steve can’t even stop immediately then, his cock giving a few more leaps, his hole clenching a couple more times. James eases one fingertip inside just because he can, and Steve manages to sag into the chair a few seconds later, flush over his nose and across his collarbones.

He’s breathing hard, but he’s also making little noises with each breath, audibly shaky. 

“Fuck you,” he says, barely a breath, and he gulps another breath to say it again. “Fuck you.”

James eases his finger out and stands up. He flicks one of Steve’s clamps.

“Ow!” Steve spits, sounding angry this time. “Bastard!”

James looks at him, sucks his lower lip a moment. Steve doesn’t look at him. 

“You’re gonna do that again,” James says. “I’m gonna put ‘em back in a minute and you’ll have two before you’re allowed to stop.”

Steve makes a petulant, irritated little sound and sneers, but he doesn’t object, and James gives him a minute to calm down ‘cause that was, firstly, a lot for Steve. And secondly it totally wasn’t the plan.

“You ought to learn some humility,” James says. “I give you an inch and you take a mile - next time you wait until I tell you. Or I’ll teach you what happens when you don’t.” 

“Ahh, fuck,” Steve mutters. “Fucking- seriously, ya fuckin’-” he pauses to gasp a little more. “Fuck.”

James bites his lip so as not to laugh, and goes back to the box for the wet wipes given that he had to drop the toys on the floor. He’ll ask Steve about cleaning the floor if the lube leaves a stain - for now his main priority is getting carpet fibers off them so he can start again.

He goes back, starts cleaning them, but he checks the clock on the kitchen wall - he’s known for years not to leave nipple clamps on too long, and it hasn’t been too long yet, but he’s got plans for them anyway so there’s no need to worry.

Once he’s cleaned the toys, and relubed the aneros, Steve’s come back to himself a little, and watches James carefully. He still looks angry, but James has given him plenty of opportunity to object, and Steve knows his safewords. 

“You can hold this one,” James says, and holds out the now-clean bullet vibe.

He holds it out directly at Steve’s face, and shakes it.

“Open up,” he says.

Steve doesn’t. Oh. Right, yeah, he. Hm. How can James…Ah.

“Open up or I’ll use the clover clamps,” James says, and Steve clenches his jaw so hard James worries about his teeth, but then does as he’s told.

James sets the bullet vibe between his front teeth, and Steve holds it there, breathing hard through his nose. 

James says, “Good boy,” just to watch Steve’s eyes narrow, and then he leans down and reinserts the aneros. 

It takes a second or two - Steve stiffens up again, gasps hugely and arches as the toy slips in after the first resistance, and settles inside him. James glances at him.

“Drop it if you need to safeword,” he says.

“Nnn-hng,” Steve says, and then James reaches up and takes the vibe out of Steve’s mouth.

“Remember what I told you,” he says, “two before you stop, and you ask me first.”

He leans very close then, and Steve looks at him.

“Or you learn a lesson. Yes?”

Steve doesn’t say anything. James runs his hand down Steve’s whole body, over his cock and his balls and his perineum, and turns the aneros on, and then hovers his fingers near the bullet vibe. Steve tenses up as soon as the vibration starts, and then twists his hips away from James’ fingers as best he can.

James laughs.

“Alright,” he says, as archly as he can manage. “You’ll get it for the second one instead.”

And then he snags the mouthwash he brought with him and walks over to the kitchen sink. He’s not dumb enough to leave Steve by himself, but he also wants to kiss Steve at some point.

Steve is, as he said, trained to withstand torture. What he’s actually trained to withstand is acquiescence in the face of extremes of sensation - be it pain, pleasure, or presumably anything else. James can think of a couple of things, of which the first and least attractive is sensory-deprivation. He’s pretty sure they could do it and one hundred percent certain neither of them would want it. 

He does incredibly well for the time it takes James to wash his mouth out, (and maybe James takes an extra few seconds to breathe) and James returns to find him bowstring-taut and holding his breath. 

James knows he can do one of two things - he can either be gentle and reassuring in the way that Steve has not asked for, or he can be exactly what Steve _has_ asked for. 

He reaches out and slaps the insides of Steve’s thighs - _very_ close to Steve’s balls - and Steve winces, makes very little noise. James slaps at his balls a couple times instead, and then gets his hand around Steve’s dick and starts jacking him slowly Steve whines, his body rocks from side to side for a moment, and then growls into a weird sort of half-cry.

“Oh,” he says.

“Don’t,” James tells him. 

_“Oh!”_ he says again, and James draws the word out next time, squeezes his fingers tighter.

“Do-o-on’t!”

“Oh, you- Pf- you _Fucking-”_

And he does, not quite as hard as last time, but hard nonetheless, not helped by the fact that James lets go of his dick as soon as it swells in his hand, and presses against his perineum in little circles instead, just to hear Steve attempt to make words without the ability to do so.

He makes a noise that’s slightly less desperate than the full throated desperation of the last time, but he keeps making it for longer than he did before.

“That’s one,” James says, “that’s bad of you. I warned you, didn’t I?”

Steve doesn’t answer, but shakes, shakes his shoulders hard enough to rattle chair and says,

“Ssssuh,” and then “shhh- cha- uh- cha- _huugh_ -”

But instinct stops James doing what he’s doing, makes him let go, makes him hold the button of the aneros down with - dry this time - fingers.

“James!” Steve says immediately, and then says, “ahhhh!” as soon as he can get the breath in.

“You okay?” James says, leaning over him, waiting until he can see Steve’s face. “Steve?”

“Sorry!” Steve gasps. “Sorry, honey, I’m sorry, ‘s just-” He swallows hard, takes a few seconds to get his breath back, the flush over his sternum now, sweat glistening on hi. “If you don’t stop that thing, there ain’t no one and two. You want me to hit a second, you gotta stop, or else I’m just gonna keep going.”

James looks at him, feels his dick harden enough that he’ll need to tuck it into his waistband soon. For a very long few seconds, he just looks at Steve.

“Did you seriously just tell me that,” he says, not even a question.

Steve stares at him, blinks, glances aside.

“I,” he says, “appear to have made a mistake.”

James bites back a smile, and then scrapes his teeth over his lower lip.

“So how long would you say that took you, Commander?” James says, and Steve closes his eyes, sighs heavily. James starts rubbing over Steve’s chest and stomach, lightly enough that he can feel Steve’s muscles tense when he gets near the clamps. “Would you say two minutes? Three?”

“Ohh, God,” Steve says to himself. 

“I’d say three, no? Objections?”

“Fuck me,” Steve says, and then he looks at James. “You ever shut up?”

For a second, James is offended, and then he remembers that Steve’s playing a part. 

He puts the glans ring back, pushes the dormant bullet vibe back into place against Steve’s frenulum.

“You’ve got quite a nerve,” James says, “for someone who’s about to make an awful lot of noise.”

He turns the aneros on again, watches the ropes bite into Steve’s thighs, his shins, watches his toes curl and his body shrink inwards as he tries to get away from it and still can’t do it.

He groans - doesn’t even try and keep it back this time - and then kind of…shakes himself? He wiggles his arms and his legs in what looks like frustration, and then James wraps his fingers around Steve’s dick and jerks, and Steve’s whole body moves up the chair. He’s never still, not for a second, limbs pushing and pulling at the restraints - watching him do it’s amazing but he starts making noise, too, and James reaches out to stroke him off again.

He’s like this because James made him like this, he can’t get away, he can’t stop what’s happening, James can do whatever he wants. James can stop him from coming, James can _make_ him come. His brain is dizzy just thinking about it - Steve really trusts him this much.

“Fuck,” Steve says, locking up, _“fuck-”_

“Ask me nicely,” James tells him, and Steve pushes a half-groaned answer out instead - it’s a word, but James doesn’t catch it.

He tightens his fingers, strokes faster - this guy’s fought Nazis and aliens, he’s lifted vehicles and run fifteen miles every morning for years (if the papers are to be believed. And they are, it’s Steve). This guy’s the most well-known superhero in history outside of comic books.

And James has tied him down and vibed him up to get him off. 

Steve sort of yells through his teeth.

“Ask me nicely!” James tells him.

Steve makes the same noise through his teeth, but kind of more defeated. James can’t help the chuckle, but Steve won’t hear it - Steve’s too busy coming for that.

“You are _terrible,”_ James says. “You just cannot seem to follow simple instructions, can you?” 

Steve keens at him, orgasm striping his stomach, his dick pulsing in James’ hand, his ass clutching at the aneros and making the whole thing worse.

“Try this one,” James says, “stop coming.”

Steve says,

 _“Ah ha haa,”_ in a way that sounds a bit like he’s on the verge of crying, and then he takes a massive lungful of air and…holds it.

“Breathe,” James tells him. 

Steve doesn’t.

James squeezes tighter.

“Breathe,” he says, and Steve’s voice breaks on a weird kind of…

James can’t even categorize it but then he says,

“Stop!” and draws it out so it takes a couple of seconds for James to parse what he’s actually said.

“Stop _who_?” James says, and he does slow down a little, just in case, but Steve knows the rules.

“Fuck!” Steve wails instead, all his ropes going tight with a _thunk_ of unhappy office chair, so James resumes his previous speed.

Steve meant what he said - that much is certain. He doesn’t let up with the sound or the movement, but it gets _more_ as the seconds tick by - more frantic, more desperate, more loud and more violent. His muscles keep contracting - James can feel them under his fingers, can see his stomach crunching and his his biceps flexing. Steve is _still coming_ and James said three minutes, but he’s pretty sure Steve might actually pass out if he tried that.

Steve starts gasping too fast - hyperventilating more than anything - and James says,

“Had enough?”

Steve makes another of those wordless noises, and it devolves into shaky half-words that don’t become full words. 

“I can’t hear you,” James says, and Steve goes very, very quiet and sort of makes a choke-y noise. And then a shaky sort of,

 _“Ohhhh,”_ that sounds like a question.

“Mhm?” James says, unimpressed. 

He’s pretty sure that’s the limit right there - Steve goes silent, rigid - so James gives him an extra ten seconds just because he can.

When he lets go, Steve makes another noise, and then he lies where he is, gasping like a fish out of water, once James manages to turn off the aneros. 

“That wasn’t so hard was it?” James says, and Steve sort of half-laughs, chest heaving, legs shaking.

They don’t stop, either, the muscles are visibly quivering. He’s never seen anyone breathe that fast, watches Steve’s nipples go up and down, watches his cock jump and sway.

James presses his palm to his dick through the front of his pants and bites his lip to hold back. He could just take it out and jerk off over Steve, it wouldn’t be the first time and neither of them are averse to it.

“I want names,” he says, has to clear his throat to do it. 

Steve makes a noise through his nose that’s more of a honk than an answer.

“What’s your go phrase?”

“Ssssharlie,” Steve says, “Charlie,” and James nods - okay, fine.

“Give me _names,_ Commander,” James says, and he waits.

Steve doesn’t look at him for a long, long few moments, until he realizes that James will wait until he does. Then his face appears between his biceps - flushed and sweaty, eyes half closed and dark, lips red and swollen.

“Uh?” he says, strained, his voice rough.

“If you don’t give me a name,” James says, flexing his fingers over Steve’s dick, “we’ll try it again. Yes?” 

Steve doesn’t quite pout, then winces when James moves his hand closer. Then he moves hard enough that all his limbs _thunk_ to a stop again as James moves.

“Wait!” he says, and James looks at him.

James _stares_ at him. 

He almost says, _“are you serious!?”_ because _is he serious?!_

Steve’s gasping, chest heaving, the little metal pieces on the nipple clamps clattering slightly. His tags are clicking too, and he looks…not worried, but probably as worried as James will ever see him in this kind of situation.

“Did you have something to say?” James says, and Steve wets his lips, opens his mouth as though he might say something, anxious.

He can’t speak for a few seconds, still, gasping heaving breaths. He shuts his eyes to collect himself, shakes his head a little. Wets his lips again. 

James narrows his eyes.

Steve does it again, looks like he’s readying himself to speak, but has to stop to get his breathing under control.

When he’s got it, he does it again, almost speaks, but then acts like he can’t.

And then Steve’s expression clears - from concern straight to disinterest.

“Okay, go ahead,” he says, and drops his head back.

James’ mouth drops open. _Faker!_

He presses the button on the little bullet vibe with one hand and, with the other, removes the clamp from Steve’s right nipple.

“Ow!!” Steve yells, and then half laughs another ‘ow’ when James removes the second before he wiggles again. “Oh!”

James shakes his head, feeling a little bit fake-malicious, and also feeling a little bit foolish. Steve’s so tied up he’s immobile, reeling from at least three orgasms (although James isn’t sure how many to categorize that last one as - two? Two and a half?) and he _still_ got one over on James.

“You fuckin’ smartass,” James says, and rubs Steve’s nipples to get the blood back into them faster.

Which _hurts_. 

Steve cries out as he twists his torso - he’s trying to get away, but James has made sure he’s got nowhere to go. 

Steve actually whinges this time, says 

_“Ah-ha-how!”_ but then he draws a huge lungful. “You can’t do this to me! Do you know who I am!? You know what kinda fuckin’ _ass-kickin’_ you’re gonna get when I get loose? You _wait’ll_ my friends get here, you’re _screwed, I hate you!”_

And James hits the aneros too for good measure. 

Okay, the chair breaks - he’s not sure where but there’s a definite _crack_ and, for a second, he worries - if the chair breaks it’ll take Steve with it - but it remains intact (of course it does, it’s Starktech) and Steve evidently doesn’t notice.

Or maybe he does but, honestly, why would he care at this point?

“Nnn,” Steve says, follows it with a wide vowel which doesn’t fool James in the slightest. 

He was gonna say ‘no’ and tried not to while he was halfway through.

“I want names,” James says. 

And, for a second, when Steve answers back with similar sounds, James thinks he’s just imitating him.

And then he realizes - it’s not ‘I want names.’ 

It’s _‘stop it, James.’_

James does - immediately. He stops everything he can, stops both vibrators, hands hovering near the hitches as he leans over Steve.

“Steve?” he says, and he can hear the panic in his own voice, can’t keep it back as much as he wants to.

“ ‘M’ok,” Steve mumbles, chest heaving, eyes closed, shaking, “m’ok’m’sry-”

James shakes his head, uses the back of his gloved hand to stroke Steve’s hair back off his forehead.

“It’s okay,” James says. “It’s okay, Steve, don’t apologize, look at me?”

Steve’s eyes crack open. He looks vaguely unhappy.

“You want to stop?” he says. “I can get you out, you need to stop?”

Steve shakes his head minutely, staring up at James. He looks half-mesmerized, and has to wet his lips to speak.

“I don’t want the,” Steve says, “the game. I thought I could but I…” he’s still breathing hard and James isn’t clear on what he means. “Don’t want more than you.”

James frowns down at him, shakes his head a little.

“I’m sorry - I don’t understand, lemme untie you,” he says. “You don’t want more than me?”

“Just, wait no!” he says, and James freezes. “Don’t untie the…just James,” Steve says, his eyes closing as he frowns. “Me.”

“You…don’t wanna roleplay?” James breathes, trying not to feel relieved in case he’s still reading it wrong.

“Yeah,” Steve says, and okay, yeah, no, James is…

“Okay,” James says, James is like _super_ relieved. “Okay. That’s - do you need to stop?”

Steve moves his head around but it’s not a nod, it’s not a shake.

“Soon,” he says, “soon,” and James isn’t sure. “Not now.”

He says it like he doesn’t know but he also sounds halfway to drunk, and James hasn’t ever been in a situation like this with Steve before.

“I,” he says, and Steve just stares at him. “Can you…”

There’s a long few moments of silence, and Steve blinks slowly.

“Yeah?” he says, low and soft.

“You still in there?”

Steve draws a huge breath and seems to sort of…come back a little…he doesn’t slouch, his eyes clear.

“I don’t need to stop,” he says, and it’s so strange - James can see him returning in little places, can see the pieces of him that must’ve been here the whole time coming to the surface because James has asked. “I’ll need to stop soon.”

“Okay,” James nods, runs the back of his fingers over Steve’s face and leans over him, kisses him. “Okay. Just James and Steve.”

Steve nods a little, and James is about to resume when he shakes his head.

“Sorry,” Steve says, and James retracts his hands. 

“Don’t,” he says.

“I know you wanted-” Steve says, and James doesn’t even let him finish that one.

“How many times you been tortured?” he says, and Steve stops, surprised, and then thinks about it.

“Four or five, ‘pendin’ on your definition?”

James nods. 

“You ever break?” he says, and Steve doesn’t need to think about it. 

He’s staring at James and James knew the answer before he asked.

“No,” Steve says.

“Yeah,” James says. “So why would I make you? That ain’t you, an’ it’s you I love. So,” he leans over again and kisses Steve, “quit,” again, “sayin’,” and again, “sorry.”

Steve looks at him, narrows his eyes, wets his lips and draws a breath and then doesn’t say anything.

“What?” James says, and Steve shakes his head minutely.

“Take it outta me,” he says. “Take the, I just, I want it all off - I like the ropes, I don’t want the rest.”

James clenches his jaw for a second and tries not to yell, then starts complying. “How long ago did you figure that out?” Because if Steve’s been holding off on a safeword just to please James-

“Right now,” Steve says. “That’s why I’m tellin’ you.”

James looks at him.

“I’m trustin’ you-”

“I swear,” Steve says. “I thought I could but I don’t want to, just figured out that I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want nothin’ but you an’ the ropes.”

James nods.

“Okay,” he says. “Alright.”

And he does as he’s asked, puts the toys on wipes on the nearest hard chair. He knows Steve’s the one tied open on an office chair but James can’t help but feel weirdly exposed. He’s standing there with a hard-on and a boyfriend who’s just about ready to nope the fuck out of their current sexual situation.

“Stop frettin’,” Steve says, “I’m fine. That’s why we talk.”

James tries to breathe, he nods. 

“Yeah,” he says, because that’s true.

“Look at me,” Steve says, and James does. “Charlie, Stop it James, Eggs Benedict. Okay?”

James nods, feels his spine straighten a little. He strips off the gloves.

“Yeah,” he says. “So what _do_ you want?”

“Next time we tie my hands to my hips,” he says, and then he lifts his chin.

Kisses, James can manage, and he leans over Steve, kisses him. Steve said ‘next time,’ so James breathes a little easier still.

“What do you want?” he says again when they part, and Steve stares up at him.

“I want this,” he says. “Like this. Can you reach?”

James forgets how much Steve likes closeness, of course - _can you reach_ is Steve’s way of basically saying _don’t go anywhere_ , but it’s fine. James can reach. From here, he can reach _everything._

“What do you want?” he says again, a third time, but quietly, and he runs his hand over Steve’s skin without looking, collarbones, pectorals, abs, and back again.

“Just touch me,” Steve says, “I can go again, just touch me. I just want your hands, baby, that’s all I want.”

James thinks about it - Steve came a good four times last night, and at least once this morning before James even tied him up, has come another three since then, plus whatever extra that really long one counts as. 

If Steve says he can do it, James has learned to trust that he knows what he’s talking about, but he can make it last a little longer for him. 

“Anything you wanna change before I start?” he says, looking down at Steve, stroking Steve’s hair back off his forehead with his now un-gloved hands.

Steve shakes his head slowly.

“No, ‘m good,” he says. “I’m good.”

James nods.

“Alright,” he says, and then he wraps his fingers around Steve’s cock.

This time, Steve shows him everything, lets his eyes flutter closed, lets his mouth open, gives James the softest of sounds past swollen lips, his breath warm against the skin of James’ lips, his cheek.

“That’s it,” James says, soft, encouraging - Steve likes being encouraged, Steve _loves_ being encouraged even though he doesn’t know it. “That’s it, look at you, doesn’t that feel nice?”

You catch more flies with honey and it’s true for Steve, too.

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs, and James should have thought of this - still, if Steve didn’t maybe it’s not so terrible that James didn’t either - James can’t go back and remember this earlier, but he can act on it now. 

“Feel good for you, huh, you like that?” 

“Yeah,” Steve says again, voice low in tone and volume, eyes closed.

“That’s it,” James says, watches Steve unwind, “that’s it, that’s good, huh, baby?”

“Fuck,” Steve breathes, his arms fall open, his legs fall open, he arches his back.

He opens himself up completely, and James is struck by how much of a difference there is. He’s been looking at Steve the whole time but Steve’s only letting James see him now.

James has heard a couple of Steve’s friends say he can’t lie for shit - James doesn’t know if that’s true but he can act like nobody James has ever seen, though. The difference in him now, the openness, the vulnerability he allows himself to have and James to see-

“I love you a lot,” James says, “just so you know that, okay?” 

Steve chuckles softly, winces when James tightens his fingers, says,

“Yeah, yeah, me too,” on a breath, “I love you, oh, baby, baby that’s _so good_ -”

“It’s okay,” James says, smiles because the smile happens all by itself, “I know, it’s okay.”

He keeps it slow, a constant pace, and Steve keeps his eyes closed, his body open to James’ hands because _that’s_ what he likes, _that’s_ what he wants. He’s red from head to toe, wet with sweat that beads on his flawless, flushed skin. The red is mottled in places, smooth in others, and so intense it looks like James left him out in the sun.

Full-body blusher, and it’s just one more thing James loves about him.

“Oh,” Steve says, soft like a secret, gentle and unhurried, “oh,” and James scrapes his teeth over his lip, an idea forming.

“Tell me,” James says, “tell me.”

“I’m close,” Steve says, his chest beginning to heave, his muscles beginning to tighten, “baby, I’m close, oh- uhnn, that’s it…”

James slows his hand, loosens his grip, and Steve’s hips roll up to try and follow, he bares his teeth.

“No,” he says, a groan, “oh, no, baby, come on,” and James stops, just lets Steve’s dick rest in his hand because he can.

He wants to, he can. 

Steve half-laughs, half-groans, wiggles in his ropes a little and lets himself sag down again. The wind up of tension was so gradual James hadn’t even noticed, but he loses it all when James stops.

“So this is what were doin’, huh?” he says, breathless, his eyes opening. 

He squints up at James, and James kisses him. Steve doesn’t open his mouth to it - they’re small, chaste little things, brushes of Steve’s lips against his own.

“I can stop,” James tells him, and Steve shakes his head minutely.

“I trust you,” he says. “More fool me, huh?”

James laughs too, quietly. He brushes Steve’s hair back again, but Steve just stares up at him, bleary smile on his face.

Steve chuckles, 

“Oohoo, I lucked out, ‘uh?” he says, sounding tipsy, stoned maybe.

James starts up again, and Steve groans, mouth dropping open, brows furrowing, but he doesn’t close his eyes, not this time. Glassy and unfocused, the pupils blown large, he just watches James watching him.

James slips his hand under the back of Steve’s neck. It’s a little awkward because Steve’s massive arms are either side of his head, but he’s relaxed enough that it just about works.

“Ah,” Steve says softly, draws a shaky breath in, “ahh.”

“There you are,” James tells him, works his hand over Steve’s dick nice and slow, and Steve just stares up at him like James is the only thing he can see. “Feels good, huh?” 

Steve’s breaths are controlled - shaky but he’s working hard to regulate.

He doesn’t speak, not for the most part. He wets his lips and makes small noises in the back of his throat, hitching, gasping little moans. James stares right back down at him, watches the minute shifts in his expression - the way his brows twitch together, the movement of his tongue as he breathes, his mouth open, the way his lashes flutter as he tries to keep his eyes open.

“Yeah?” James says, soft. “Huh?”

It’s almost an imitation, he’s almost leading Steve on with it - each time James gives him something, murmurs something soft or makes a sound like Steve’s, Steve gives him another little sound in return, so James leans a little closer, furrows his brow too, smiles.

“Oh,” James says, sympathetic, “ohh, oh,” and Steve gets a little more desperate, says it right back as he tries to hold his breath and fails.

“Oh-h,” he says, before another gasp, “uhn, _ohn_ f-” 

He shakes his head, lets his eyes close for just a moment.

“Mmm?” James says when Steve’s eye open again. “Yeah?”

“Oh, bah-” he’s breathing heavier now, his words don’t come easy and he pants like he’s been running hard, “baby, that’s-”

“Tell me when you’re close,” James murmurs, and Steve’s happy passivity fades until his distress is evident, his head shakes minutely, and James closes the fingers of his other hand, the one under Steve’s head, enough to hold his head a little more still.

“Oh,” Steve says, a sad, drawn-out kind of moan, and James just smiles, keeps his rhythm, pushes Steve higher. “James, James,” Steve says, and James just smiles.

“It’s alright,” he says, “it’s alright, you tell me.”

“Oh, I,” he says, and he stretches, his folded legs spread, his back arches his head presses back into James’ hand, “ _oh, I’m-_ ”

And, just like before, James slows his hand, loosens his fingers. It’s not like slamming on the breaks, it’s like letting a freight train stop under its own steam, and Steve’s expression changes from long and open to wide and tight. He winces instead, teeth bared, eyes shut tight as his body’s progress speeds to a halt.

“Baby,” he says, breathing fast, “no, nono,” and James just waits, just makes sure Steve’s really not going to manage.

He can feel, before he lets go, Steve’s hips come up, trying to fuck up into James’ fist - he can feel the pulse of muscle too as Steve tries to bring it on anyway.

When he can’t, when he strains over the next few seconds and still doesn’t manage to get what he wants, he goes limp in the chair, shakes his head minutely.

“James,” he says, miserable-but-not-really, and James eases his hand from under Steve’s head, takes a couple of steps back and takes a good look at him.

He’s not going to make Steve wait much longer, but he wants to remember this for the rest of his life (as though somehow he wouldn’t) and just rakes his gaze over Steve’s body.

Steve lifts his head a little and looks at James, but then drops it back. James categorizes the muscle groups in his mind, admires the light on the sweat-slick skin, watches Steve’s cock bob as his hole clenches around nothing again, hears him make a few more of those little sounds. 

His hole is still pink and wet, his balls drawn small and tight up against his body, dark against skin that’s usually so pale. His cock is gorgeous, James will never get over it - thick and shining and _it’s_ dark, too, drooling - and, when James looks back up at Steve’s face, Steve is looking back at him.

He can barely see James from that angle, chin tucked right down against his collar bone, but his mouth hangs open and he _stares_ with dark eyes.

Even tied to a chair, there’s no doubt - Steve is a force of nature and James is powerless in the face of him.

James takes a step around him, to stand right in front of him, to look down at him. Steve doesn’t move, doesn’t give him anything. He just looks, breathing kinda hard, waiting.

James leans over him, plants his left hand against the chair, next to Steve’s torso, so that he can lean down over him. If he were going to fuck Steve, he could do it like this, at least for a while. Steve’s right here, splayed out beneath him, and James has had enough in him by now that he’s loose. 

James considers it. He could do it - all he’d have to do is open his pants and push into soft, wet heat, and he _wants_ to. But he still has some control. He has enough over himself not to do it but, mainly, he has enough over Steve that he can still choose.

Something like this, they’re both in charge. James has to be ready to stop, Steve had to know his own limits, and they both have to trust each other enough to trust each other and move forward.

James reaches out with his free hand when he’s face to face with Steve, strokes the backs of his fingers over Steve’s cheek and then strokes his fingertips down Steve’s neck, over his collarbone and his chest, over his stomach, out to his thigh.

“Just my hands,” he says, and Steve nods minutely. 

“Charlie,” he breathes, and James can see his muscles flexing in the ropes.

So James brings his hand inward and pushes two fingers into Steve, watches Steve’s whole expression crumple, listens to the desperate, broken moan his gives.

“You tell me,” James says, and Steve makes a small, wounded sound - frustration, maybe, or anxious anticipation. 

James won’t make him wait again, but Steve doesn’t know it yet.

“You tell me,” James says again, curls his fingers, and Steve nods, bares his teeth and pulls at his ropes and groans.

“James,” he says, and James curls his fingers around Steve’s cock and starts up his rhythm, inside and outside both this time. 

It’s a little bit of a strain leaning over him like this given that he’s using both hands on Steve, but his core strength is good, and all of this is way more of a strain on Steve than it is on James.

Steve gives him a cry for his trouble, his whole body flexing in the bonds. His legs clunk to a stop again, the skin around his wrist ropes white with the pressure exerted by his strength against them. 

James just stares at him as his head goes back. He won’t cry, that’s not what he does, but it’s a similar expression, and he seems to come alive with it then. He stops being still, stops being easy and quiet, and works hard for it, James can see him, James can _feel_ him, can feel Steve’s body clutching at his fingers as he rubs tight, hard little circles on the inside, can feel Steve’s cock in his hand seemingly pulsing as it tries to lift in James’ grip. Steve circles his hips up, and then down, and James doesn’t tell him off for it. Why should he? They’re not playing that game any longer - it’s a different game they’re playing now.

“Tell me,” James says, because he can feel Steve winding up.

Steve makes a noise that sounds like it’s going to be the beginning of a word, but he swallows it back. But _then,_ then he decides to say it anyway and what he says startles James almost to inaction. After everything they’ve done, after all of the games they’ve played, Steve says,

“ _Please,”_ in a way that’s completely unaffected, totally genuine, and James doubles down. “Oho, please…”

“Tell me,” he says anyway, and Steve says,

“Uh, uh,” and shakes his head, “oh please, please, baby, please-”

“Yeah?” James says. “Yeah?”

“Ohn, yeah,” Steve answers, and then just says it over and over, a broken record of a litany, “ohn, yeah, ohn, yeah-”

James doesn’t let up.

“Please,” Steve whines eventually, “please, _please-”_

And James knows. He knows Steve’s body well enough by now to see the signs, has learned him well enough to be aware that, even if he stopped now, Steve would keep right on going. James has already ruined one orgasm for him lately, he’s got no plans to do it again.

“That’s it, baby,” James says, soft and low while he puts all the strength he can into the movement of his hands, “that’s it, you go right ahead.”

Steve draws a huge lungful, and another, and then comes, muscles pulsing around James' fingers, cock trying to leap in James' hand, and there's silence for a good few seconds until, finally, he says,

"Ahhhh," in a tone of voice that sounds so angry and frustrated James would think he’d dropped an expensive vase or something, and then he locks up and shakes, head to toe, in a shudder that surprises James in its intensity.

His hips snap up, his _whole, body_ trying to get more from James' hands, and shoots off so hard James is kind of amazed. Some of it splatters against the top of the chair, some goes right past and drops onto the floor, James can hear it hitting the carpet.

“Oh my God,” James says, not quite a laugh, unable to keep up the encouragement past the surprise, “you fuckin’ missed!”

 _“Don’t slow down!”_ Steve grits out, so James speeds up, and Steve’s mouth drops open on a smile, his back arches and he's gorgeous at the best of times but this is something James is still amazed he gets to see. “Oh- _God,”_

His stomach concaves, a beautiful hollow between sharp hips bones, pale thighs stretching outward as his chest comes up, drawn out almost flat by the arch of his back and and the strength of his moans. The underside of his jaw is pale, his Adam's apple bobbing as he tries to work his throat, and he says,

"N- hah," and jerks in his restraints.

He's fascinating, James thinks, beautiful. His body works so hard like this and then all James has to do is keep going and Steve's reactions swing up and down like a pumpjack, the strain of working for orgasm versus the calm-before-the-storm of coming and the sagging relief of a climax, followed by the ramping tension of overstimulation. 

"Fff- _hah_ J- ehh-" Steve says, "James, _James_ -"

James keeps him going, rubs over the head of Steve's cock as hard as he can, and Steve _whines_ , it turns into a keening cry that's sharp and loud, Steve tapers off into silence and then gasps hugely.

"That's it," James says, "you got a little more, don't you?"

"Ja- _hames!"_ Steve yells, relaxing only enough to pull all his limbs inward with an especially loud _clonk_ , and so James has mercy, James slows down, James eases him out of it because stopping cold-turkey's almost as bad.

Steve's muscles are still fluttering around him but Steve's shaking his head, moaning softly, trying to pull his body away. When James withdraws fingers, he can _hear_ them, and he gets ready to stand to sort Steve out but Steve says,

"Where the fuck," and James looks down to see that Steve's lifted his head literally as far off the seat as he can, _are you?_

He also has one eye closed. Because there's come in it.

"You got-" James says, and Steve shakes his head, drops his head back again to lift it a second time.

"Kiss," he says, "fuckin'-" wow he's out of breath, "kisses."

James does and tastes - ha, Steve must have come up the length of his own face as well as up his torso and on the carpet, _damn_ \- sucks Steve's lower lip into his mouth to clean it off because why shouldn't he, and then tugs the cuff of his shirt forward up over his hand.

"Keep still," he says, and clears Steve's eye enough that Steve can open it. 

Then James looks down at Steve, smiles. Steve smiles back, a little self-conscious, very flushed and very sweaty but looking very pleased. 

“Fuck,” he breathes.

"Okay," James says. "What do I do now to get you outta this right?"

~

What James has to do, as it turns out, is just follow Steve's instructions. 

He asks for James to untie his hands first, which James does, and then he winces as he brings his arms forward.

"You okay?" James says, suddenly terrified, and Steve smiles a little as he brings his hands down in front of his face.

"Yeah," he says, his voice strained, and they unpick the ropes around his wrists. "Just stiff from bein' in one place, 'm okay."

Then, Steve pools his chain and the tags and ring in the center of his chest, and sets about rubbing his left wrist with his right. James notices the rope-marks there - three beautiful pink impressions of the twisted ropes that bound him. They're beautiful, and James stares for a couple of seconds too long before he moves on.

"Your legs next?" he says, and Steve nods.

"Yeah," he says, "but I need- I'm gonna need for you to be careful. Okay? Don't you move me, I'll move me, it's important that I move myself in case there are injuries I don't know about until I move."

"Shit," James says. "That, can that happen?"

"Depends how safe you are when you do this," Steve says. "I'm probably fine, but I'll be stiff, and the blood's gonna come back and I might cramp and stuff…I'm…it's gonna hurt a little. But it always does, it's nothing unusual. Usually feels kinda good too, you know what I mean? Like a workout."

James blinks.

"I only ever feel like I've been sat on by an elephant after I work out," he says, "but I guess?"

Steve chuckles. 

"Just don't worry about it unless I tell you to worry about it," Steve says. "Okay?"

James nods.

"Okay," he says. "Your legs?"

"Yeah," Steve nods, and he pushes himself up the chair a little. "But I'm gonna need you to actually support my leg if you can, okay? Make sure you're keeping it up, 'cause I won't be able to put it down straight away. Is that okay?"

"Yeah," James nods, kneels down and unties the ropes from around the gas cylinder of the chair. 

Then he kneels up and gets Steve's knee, where it overhangs the edge of the chair, against his chest, so that he can use his upper body as a bolster. 

Steve looks like he might be considering unpicking his own knots, but James gets there first, reaching around and underneath his bound leg to unwind the ropes and, when they do come undone, Steve winces, presses his body back into the cushioning and shifts his foot forward across the seat of the chair little by little. His foot's already come away a little from his thigh just with the release of the ropes, and so James moves just enough to get Steve's knee against his shoulder instead of his chest, easing his hand between Steve's calf and thigh to cup the back of his knee.

"Ah," Steve says softly, wincing, and James doesn't care about the sweat on his skin, only the stiffness of the limb. "Ah, there's…Mhh, ow, s’ok that's the blood." He hisses through his teeth.

James just waits, holding Steve's leg until he starts to extend it, and then he makes sure he’s taking as much of the weight of it as he can. Steve looks uncomfortable, but he doesn’t look unhappy, and he moves slowly. He reminds James of those cranes you see sometimes, big and cumbersome in their slowness, except Steve somehow manages to be elegant with it, dropping tired arms to his sides as he concentrates on making his leg do as he wants it to, pressing his tongue to his lower lip as he groans softly. 

James helps him put his leg down once he’s extended it, makes sure he gets his foot flat on the floor in his own time.

“Oh,” Steve says, “ow,” and taps his foot on the floor a little. 

Cramp, James presumes, and he pushes in with his knuckles in Steve’s calf.

“Thigh,” he says, “back of-” voice strained, and James does that instead, pushes his knuckles into Steve’s thigh just where it turns into the back of his knee. Steve’s expression eases after a few moments, and he nods. “Thank you.”

James goes hands-and-knees around the other side of the chair once Steve gives him a nod, and starts on the other leg.

They work together and do it the same way, James supports his leg the whole way down. 

“Can you,” Steve says, strained “dig in next to the marks too? Just-”

James does, pushes his thumbs in and kneads, and Steve makes a noise that’s not dissimilar to the noises he _usually_ makes when he’s coming, wincing as he shifts in the chair, trying to give James better access.

The rope marks on his skin are beautiful, ladder lines of twisted pink like the ghosts of his bonds, the (mainly) symmetrical bands like jewelry on his skin, like tattoos he’s made in his own pleasure. James is still really turned on, but he knows he’s got priorities now in a way he’s never really had them with Steve before, and he pushes at Steve’s muscles as Steve directs him to them, touches Steve because he wants to and because Steve wants him to. Steve’s polite about it, never demanding, but the enjoyment in his expression as James helps ease the tension out and the blood back in would be well worth the wait even if James hadn’t just had one of the best mornings of his life. 

He cleans Steve up with wipes from the box, and with damp kitchen towel for his eye. Steve chuckles but thanks him, and then sighs.

“What’s next?” he says, when Steve’s sitting boneless in the chair. “What do you need?”

Steve looks ready to go to sleep, but his eyes are still open, he’s still tracking James.

“I could really do with water,” he says, “and maybe a blanket.”

James nods.

“I,” he says, “I shouldn’t leave you alone though.”

“It’s okay,” Steve says. “I’m not tied up any more, and Jarvis will be able to register a problem if I have one, it’s okay. Come here and kiss me, it’s okay, you did great. Especially ‘cause I…you were great.”

James is shaking, he realizes. His hands have a tremor in them, and partly it’s nerves, partly it’s adrenaline - he’s still worked up but he’s also kind of amazed they managed this. It feels weird that it’s over so soon, too.

This time, when he leans down to kiss Steve, Steve reaches up to him, pulls him down by his lapel and kisses him like he hasn’t seen him in days, moaning into his mouth to get his tongue past James’ lips. James is a little dizzy when Steve lets him go, and Steve pats him on the ass as he goes by. He’s smiling lecherously when James looks back at him, and James just picks up his pace. 

He comes back with the faux-fur throw from the spare room. Faux-fur’s come a long way from the scratchy shedding stuff of five-year-old James’ Christmas Elf costume, and he hurries back with it. When he gets there, Steve’s not on the office chair and, for a split second, he panics, until he sees Steve lowering himself to the couch.

“Hi,” Steve says, and he sounds tired.

“Hi,” James says, hustles over and wraps him in the throw, fur facing inward. “I’ll be back in a second.”

He races over to the fridge, hears Steve saying,

“I know, honey, it’s okay.”

He grabs water and a high-calorie candy bar, and then comes back with them, unscrewing the bottle cap as he does, so he can hand the bottle to Steve when he gets there.

“You’re panicking,” Steve tells him, calmly, and James nods, holds his breath a few seconds. 

“Sorta,” he says.

“Gonna make it hard for you to fuck me,” Steve says, and James laughs a little hysterically.

“God,” he mutters, and shakes his head as he plants a hand on his hip again. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” he says, and Steve takes another swig of the-

No, he empties the bottle, okay, nodding as he does, draining it so fast that it crumples in his hand and James’ brain says _why are you surprised, you know how hard he can suck_ , but he’s not sure this is a good idea.

“Uh-huh,” Steve says. “Had a lot in me but I ain’t had you, and that’s what I want.”

He leans forward, puts the empty bottle down, and slouches back into the couch, withdrawing his limbs back into the blanket. 

James puts his other hand on his hip too, takes a good long look at Steve, assessing. 

Steve knows himself well, and James _knows_ that. If Steve says he can take it, chances are Steve can take it. But James remembers every time so far that he’s been nervous or freaked out, and Steve’s just taken care of him and made sure he’d be fine.

James gets the feeling that that’s an equally good plan right now, and he’s never been in a situation with Steve that didn’t benefit from being safe instead of sorry.

“Sit forward,” he says eventually. “I can wait.”

Steve looks bemused, but does as he’s asked, and James pushes and pulls at him until he sits sideways on the couch. Then James gets behind him. 

He gets one leg either side of Steve, and Steve tries to track what he’s doing until James pulls him back, so they’re lying on the couch with Steve’s back against his chest. Then Steve says,

“Oh,” very quietly, and turns his head a little, and James just holds him there and keeps him close, rubbing his hands over Steve’s arms under the blanket, across his chest. 

The tags jingle under the fabric and James vaguely recalls seeing Steve wearing them when he came back with the blanket, although he didn’t register that he must have put them back on when he saw it then.

“Eat,” James tells him, and Steve makes a pleased little noise as James presents him with the candy bar.

He extricates his hands from the blanket again, fumbles with the bar for a few seconds, but he gets it open just as James considers opening it for him.

Steve is huge. He does not fit in the cradle James has made with his body, not really, but it doesn’t seem to concern him. He relaxes (two-forty is a lot of pounds, but James can take him) and finishes his candy bar while James rubs his neck and shoulders.

“You okay?” Steve says, and James rolls his eyes.

“Yes,” he says. “I was worried when you said you didn’t want the roleplay but you clarified and you still knew your words, so now it’s my turn. Are _you_ okay?”

There’s a very long silence following that, and James fancies he can hear Steve’s raised eyebrows.

“I,” he says, “am okay.” He stays quiet for a moment, and James waits. The wheels are turning, he knows. “I just…Didn’t like pretending not to love you.”

And James feels his mouth drop open. Okay, so. Steve’s going straight for the heart, it seems. 

“I didn’t like pretending not to want you, didn’t like pretending to hate you when it’s not…when it’s not you I wanna yell at,” Steve says, and his voice is quieter. “I thought I could do it but it…”

James starts rubbing his arms again through the blanket, aware that he’s stopped to listen. Steve shrugs a little.

“Guess I don’t like pretend torture as much as I thought I would.”

“Figures,” James says. “You don’t like real torture either. Thank you for telling me.”

Steve huffs a laugh through his nose, drops his head back against James’ shoulder.

“Mm,” he says. “I liked the denial thing though.”

James laughs, startled into it.

“Well, good,” he says. “You were s’posed to.”

Steve goes quiet again then, and James will do whatever he wants later. James will do _to Steve_ whatever _Steve_ wants him to do. This whole thing was fun, but he’s learned a fair amount about himself and Steve both, not least that Steve might need a different outlet for the negativity that surrounds confronting bad guys, and that that doesn’t mix well with sex. So, for now, instead, James is just as happy as Steve to be where they are - quiet on the couch, snuggled close, and safe.

**Author's Note:**

> Steve basically teaches James the “Futomomo” to tie his legs. If you are practicing Shibari (that is, practicing in either sense of the word) please observe safety precautions. Plenty of information is available online regarding how to place ropes and knots, how to avoid injury and provide safe, speedy ways out of ties, and how long positions should be held for. Play safe! :D
> 
> If you have anything you'd like to ask about this fic, or any of my other fics, please feel free to come and ask me on tumblr - my username's the same there - and I'll be happy to chat! If you’d like rare updates, I’m @justanononline on twitter these days. @ me to get my attention.
> 
> Here is [a link to a timeline](https://66.media.tumblr.com/aac4be76b217f7b6ea54592e0a76d168/tumblr_inline_pg5mcewTA21rckout_500.png) if you'd like to know the dates of the occurrences in this fic up to part 10, and here is a [a link to the next part of the timeline](https://66.media.tumblr.com/5f3c9fff19fe97660662611079013dad/tumblr_ps0mw599GT1s2056to1_500.png) from part 11 to 21.


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